Category: Cuba-Florida

Attachment Disorder, part 1

Diana Nyad didn’t swim from Cuba to Florida under her own power. In the next three posts, I’ll describe — and provide evidence for — my theory of how she made it look like she did.

part 1 – part 2 – part 3

In Medias Res

Starting with the rules laid down in my house when I was a child, I have never much respected society’s expected standards. . . . When some television executive tells me the story I’m working on has to have a linear structure and start at the beginning, I revolt and take my case to the highest command, arguing that to embark on this particular story in the middle and work the early part in later hits the sublime emotion of it. Ask Shakespeare about in medias res.
—Diana Nyad, Find a Way, p. 222

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Diana Nyad is well into the second night of her fifth and final attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida. She has made miraculous progress over the last two days, often moving at speeds more than double and sometimes triple her usual 1.5-2 miles per hour. At 9 p.m. on Sunday night, she’s chugging along at about three miles per hour — with the ostensible help of a strong current flowing northeast.
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Countering the Currents

I have a theory about how Diana may have caught a ride during her Cuba-Florida crossing. Over the next month or so, I’ll make a case in support of that theory. Before that happens, though, we need to catch up on some currents.

From “SW Fla. group helps swimmer reach goal,” by Mike Braun, The News-Press, 5 Sep 2013.

Mike Braun’s article “SW Fla. group helps swimmer reach goal” appeared in the News-Press of South Lee/North Naples on September 5, 2013, during the interlude between the end of Nyad’s crossing on the 2nd and the infamous conference call on the 10th. You can also find the article on USA Today’s site under a different title: “Florida kayakers help swimmer Nyad reach historic goal.”

Nyad’s crew had gotten their stories and their currents straight by the 10th.

But not so by the 5th.
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Diana Nyad, Surely a Lesson to Us All

Diana surprised me again. No new facts, but the brazenness with which she presents a favorite fable will take your breath away.

This weekend, the DN Annex organized a scavenger hunt. We fanned out across the internet in search of images that would support or refute my theory of how Diana Nyad may have cheated.

More on that theory in a later post. For now, I want to say—with all due humility—that I won big time!

And not only did I win; in the process of achieving victory, I came across some gems unrelated to the boom quest.
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Nyad: The Motion Picture

For over forty years, Diana Nyad has longed for a biopic devoted to her favorite subject, Diana Nyad.*

* I borrowed “favorite subject” from Jonathan Yardley’s 1978 Sports Illustrated review of Nyad’s first memoir, Other Shores. However, Yardley says Nyad has two favorite subjects. He was wrong.
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Below is a lightly and snarkily annotated chronological list of all of Nyad’s biopic-related pronouncements that I know of.
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Diana’s Disappearing Ink

The first pattern that emerged from the “110 Miles . . .” discussion on the Marathon Swimmers Forum was Diana Nyad’s policy of active un-engagement.

Don’t Rock the Boat

Diana and/or her handlers must have calculated that their boat already rode so low in the water that any movement might swamp it. So Diana either does not engage with skeptics; or, when she momentarily forgets herself and does engage, she quickly erases the evidence, pretends nothing happened, and hopes that the boat stops rocking.

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¡Adelante!

A rereading of “110 miles, 53 hours: Questions for Diana Nyad” sends the Annex swimming off in a new direction.

¡Feliz año nuevo!

“G Is For Gato,” by Dora Hathazi Mendes. Via Karavella Atelier.

I love the sound of Spanish, the music of it, the way so many words end by flowing out of vowels rather than by crashing into consonants: gato vs. cat, for instance, or perro vs. dog, calle vs. street, etc.

I don’t know enough Spanish, though, to converse in it beyond the level of un niño who has just turned three.

I do know a thing or two about Diana Nyad.  She is a con artist and a fraud, and she will lie about anything. The last two Annex posts leave no doubt about that.

So just one task remains: proving that Nyad did not swim all the way from Cuba to Florida under her own power.
Continue reading “¡Adelante!”

Caveat Scriptor: 5th Anniversary video #2

Diana Nyad again demonstrates her abysmal kindness and generosity while talking about all of the good that she does in the world.

In Tuesday’s Facebook Live installment—“SHARE with us YOUR Xtreme Dreams! Are you fulfilling your potential? What do you imagine doing with your next five years? Inspire us all by commenting below…”—Diana’s followers did not let her down. Check out the torrent of reverential responses: “You are my idol.” “You are an inspiration to us all!” “You are so great! !!!!!!!!” etc.

Here in the eye of the Cult of Diana storm, Nyad continues to construct a levee against the flood of those who know her to be a charlatan. How could Diana—she who causeth the waters to part, the sitters to walk, and the smokers to smoketh not—ever lie? Wouldn’t happen in a million years, or so her believers can’t help but believe. (C.f. Lance Armstrong and LiveStrong.)

Here’s my favorite part of the video:
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Nyad’s 5th Anniversary Facebook Live Video — a Quick Look

Diana Nyad got through this paean to herself with a few well-worn fabrications, a warning about a future endeavor, and one horrifying episode of insensitivity.

Diane Strubel whispering to “I’ve Got a Secret” host Garry Moore,  4 Nov 1959. (Full episode here.) Diana Nyad swam around Manhattan in 1975 and still claims to be the first woman to do so. She was the seventh.

Yesterday’s Facebook Live Video — “Join us in celebration, today, the 5th Anniversary of the Cuba Swim Expedition…”—mainly involved Diana Nyad, before a small audience on the deck of a boat, talking about herself. She also introduced friends and family who, when they spoke, talked about Diana Nyad.

She couldn’t get through her part without a nod to the backlist:

The best men, women, fast, strong, young swimmers in the world have tried this swim. It’s the Mt. Everest of the earth’s oceans.

To review: Only five people besides Nyad have attempted solo crossings of the Florida Strait (see “Everybody’s Doin’ It“). And the Florida Strait is NOT the Mt. Everest of the earth’s oceans. Only one person claims that it is (see “p. 244“).

Earlier, Nyad had enumerated her bilge-bucket list of what “the next things are.” Here’s the final entry:

I want to perform on stage and bring this story to life in a dramatic, storytelling way, and be known as one of the better storytellers of our time.

In other words, she’s gotta be storyteller #1, and she’s not going away any time soon.
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Diana Nyad and the Case of the Vanishing Video

To verify her 2013 Cuba-Florida crossing and protect herself from skeptics, why didn’t Diana Nyad film the entire 2013 attempt? Because she was protecting herself by NOT filming the crossing.

Members of Nyad’s crew filmed parts of the swim. Within a few months of her 2013 conquest, however, almost all video from the event disappeared.

For example:

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Liquid Sisters: Comparing the Con Artistry of Diana Nyad and Elizabeth Holmes

Wall St. Journal investigative reporter John Carreyrou, in his recent book BAD BLOOD, writes about a charismatic, driven woman who professes that nothing is impossible if you only just believe hard enough. No, he wasn’t talking about Diana Nyad, he was talking about Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of the disgraced medical technology firm Theranos.

Turns out it takes a bit more than that.

In March, the SEC charged Holmes with “massive fraud.” Last month, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California indicted Holmes for wire fraud and conspiracy.

Besides charisma and drive, Holmes and Nyad share other characteristics of accomplished con artists. Here’s one: the ability to convince people of the supposed purity of their motives. Former Secretary of State George Shultz on Holmes:
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