Diana often talks about living life without regrets. So it’s odd that she told Time Magazine she regrets not keeping a blog. She has plenty of things to regret, but that’s not one of them. Between 2010 and 2016, Nyad and her supporters uploaded over 500 posts to what she called “Diana’s Blog.” Many of her posts remained accessible via diananyad.com through most of 2023. Then, on September 1, 2023, the day Nyad premiered, her website redesign went live — absent a “blog” link for the first time in 13 years.
Unfortunately, some things do disappear from the internet forever. But thanks to the Internet Archive, I was able to salvage about 500 of the blog’s 526 entries. I posted them all here:
Notes about the archive:
- The unsalvageable entries often left footprints on archived lists, Nyad’s Facebook page, or both. The “Diana’s Blog” Archive includes links to those sources. You’ll sometimes need to scroll through an archive to find the remnants of an entry.
- Nyad didn’t write all the posts. During her Cuba-Florida attempts particularly, her social media people did the posting. She often included guest posters. In March 2013, Nyad asked for more in “Calling All Guest Bloggers.”
- Many archived posts are missing images, audio, and video.
Why Diana Deleted Her Blog
Kelly Bush Novak, the A-list Hollywood PR exec who handled Diana during the rollout of her biopic, told The Hollywood Reporter that lying was the worst PR move she’d ever seen. “I’ve seen people do it, I’ve seen publicists do it on people’s behalf. It always catches up to you. You can’t get away with lying.” But Diana has gotten away with lying for over 50 years. Whenever she speaks or writes, she lies. Within Diana’s first few blog posts, you can see why she tried to make the whole thing disappear.
Nyad’s first post links to a 2-minute, 38-second promotional video that includes three significant lies:
- The Cuba-Florida crossing “is a swim I invented.” Walter Poenisch and Jim Woods had begun planning a Cuba–Florida swim a decade before Nyad’s first attempt.
- “I did swim the longest swim in history.” In 1979, Nyad self-declared her Bahamas-to-Florida swim a world distance record. No marathon swimming governing organization ever agreed. See “Swimming to Jupiter.”
- “[I] was the first woman ever to swim around Manhattan Island.” She was the 7th. When she completed the swim in 1975, she knew of at least two other women who had preceded her.
A week later, Nyad publishes “The Amazing Suit.” The suit has an internal pocket that accepts a heat pack called a “ThermoPad.” Nyad hopes it will help keep her warm. “It’s a brand new theory,” writes Nyad, “after many failed attempts with battery-operated systems in the bathing cap.”
Nyad’s “Amazing Suit” and her battery-operated bathing cap devices foreshadow other “amazing” innovations that flout every existing set of marathon swimming rules on the planet. For instance, in her 7 July 2012 post, “Prep For Hypothermia,” Nyad floated the idea for what came to be called her Heat Drip Device, another scheme for staying warm. “Prep For Hypothermia” disappeared before anyone had a chance to archive it. Three days later, Nyad posted “Response To Heat Drip Dialogue” to address the outcry from experienced marathon swimmers.
Other examples of Diana’s innovations:
- “I’ve got four or five tight rubber bathing caps over my ears.”
- “They [crew members] can put a hot water hose down your bathing suit if you’re cold to try to, you know, relieve that.”
- “A hot water drip to hit my body at the solar plexus and the nape of the neck, perhaps for 60 seconds at a time, maybe every 6 hours or so.”
- “You can see I have a suit, I have surgeon’s gloves, I got booties — all legal, you’re not allowed to wear neoprene.
This project began with a search for “Prep For Hypothermia.” I didn’t start paying attention to Diana Nyad until after her Cuba-Florida crossing in 2013. By that time, “Prep For Hypothermia” was long gone. I couldn’t believe, though, that it was gone forever. A few weeks ago, I gave up looking for it and asked ChatGPT for help. It offered a few possible search strategies. One was to check archived RSS feeds. And there it was, “Prep For Hypothermia,” along with a few other missing posts. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet located the accompanying video.
A note about rules: When I say “marathon swimming rules,” I mean any set of rules with traditional, English Channel rules as their foundation. Some of these sets have minor variations, but their core is always the same: The swimmer can wear one textile suit, one cap, goggles, a nose clip, and earplugs. The swimmer can’t touch the boat or another person.
Patterns
I’ve only started to read through the posts, but several patterns have already become obvious. Some examples:
Geniuses, Visionaries, And Superstars Surround Her
“See this green strap velcroed onto the right side bathing suit strap? Well, my genius friend Anita Van Reingold designed this for me.”
— “Chafing Problem Solved! Here’s How!” 9 Jul 2011
“I have collaborated with a prosthetics genius named Stefan Knauss.”
— “Defending Against The Deadly Box Jellyfish,” 31 Aug 2013
“Captain John [Bartlett] (inventor extraordinaire) [has] been experimenting with a slew of night-light rigging systems.”
— “Diana’s Birthday Insight,” 23 Aug 2010
“Left in the photo is [Sanjay Gupta’s] Senior Producer, Roni Selig. Roni is smart as a whip. A visionary in terms of what programming compells [sic] Sanjay’s fans. Center is genius Matt Sloane. Young guy who can virtually answer ANY question you pose.”
— “CNN Behind the Scenes,” 31 May 2012
“Sanjay Gupta is a life force. Superstar neurosurgeon. Superstar medical correspondent. Superstar best-selling author (new and first novel “Monday Mornings” on NY Times best-seller list….I couldn’t put it down). Superstar conversationalist. Superstar friend. Superstar. Period.”
— ibid
Catherine Opie is one of today’s most renowned and revered fine arts photographers in the world. Just four years ago, at the outrageously young age of 46, Opie’s entire body of work was installed and celebrated in a mammoth, four-story show at the famous Guggenheim Museum in NYC. . . . [She is] considered one of the leading artists of our time.
Cathy is also one of my dearest friends.
— “Catherine Opie,” 1 Dec 2011
According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition, an individual with narcissistic personality disorder “believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).” Via psychiatry.org.
Woozles
A Woozle is a myth that many people believe because many people says it’s true. Like “vaccines cause autism,” “liars avoid eye contact,” and “Diana Nyad set a world distance record.” Nyad’s self-declared record continues to be woozled in official-sounding books and articles, and by official-sounding people, despite originating solely with Nyad and never having been recognized by any marathon swimming governing organization.
Diana Nyad has nothing to prove. She already holds the record for longest ocean swim ever.
— Good Morning America host Robin Roberts, 2 Sep 2010. (post | video)
I broke many records in my prime as a long-distance swimmer back in the 1970’s, in my twenties. For my world record — 102.5 continuous miles from the Bahamas to Florida in 1979 — and other swims, such as breaking the 50-year-old mark for circling Manhattan Island, many Halls of Fame have honored me.
— “The Dream,” 4 Jul 2010
Nyad’s impressive résumé — multiple world-record holder in
endurance swimming, journalist, author and motivational speaker — belies her personal philosophy that life isn’t really a series of accomplishments.
— “The New 61,” 12 May 2011, posted to Nyad’s blog without attribution to the original author or source
Nyad later declared her unratified and unratifiable Cuba-Florida swim a distance record:
“Cuba is close to my heart. Always has been. Always will be. It was no accident that I chose this world record distance to be in this particular geography.”
— “Cuba One Year Later,” 10 Sep 2015
Birth of Self-Mythologies
Singing and Counting Chain Gang Songs, Et Al.
Nyad’s counting claims always collapse under the weight of their absurdity. Her counting nonsense peaks in Find a Way with a scheme that would take five days to complete. Her blog may have been where it all began.
From “Songs in the Sea,” 20 Sep 2010:
I don’t always sing an entire song. Sometimes I just know every lyric. Mostly it’s because I can’t keep up the attention span to go through stanzas and choruses, more stanzas, and remember where I am. So I pick parts of songs. Melodies that please my brain.
. . .
So I could sing It Ain’t Me, Babe 300 times. . . . I finish the first time, I say ONE. When I get to 300, I know that I’ve stroked like a metronome for exactly 5 hours. And I’m rarely off that time by even as much as a minute.The silly, repetitive kind of chain gang songs are very comforting, too:
She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain
I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.
Within a few months, Nyad’s attention had skyrocketed. We know this from “The Womb,” an episode of the public radio program, “UnFictional” (seriously, that’s what it’s called):
I sing a short ditty that I can remember that just gets me through about, you know, 40 strokes, it’s very comforting. . . . I might sing it 5000 times, literally. And I won’t lose count when I get to, like, number 3248. I don’t lose count after and say, “Oh, wait a sec, wait a sec, was that 2458 or 200. . . . No, I don’t lose count for 5000 hits, and it keeps my mind engaged, and it helps me pass the time.
“The Womb” first aired on March 22, 2011. Nyad posted about it on February 2, 2012.
Mom on the beach
In an October 2012 post, Nyad writes:
I do remember standing on the beach when I was 9 years old and I looked across at the horizon and I said to my mom “I wonder if anyone could swim over to Cuba.”
So far, this is the earliest hint of what would become Diana’s Cuba-Swim origin myth, in which Diana’s mom tells 9-year-old champion swimmer Diana that Cuba’s “so close, you could almost swim there.” A dream is ostensibly born. Unfortunately, Diana didn’t start swimming competitively until three years later. Also unfortunately, I can’t find the “Voice of America” source for the quote.
We’ll Always Have Manhattan
Less than three weeks after Diana’s first post, she writes about some folks doing a triathlon:
[I] cheered them on as they all dove into the Hudson River (one of my fondest swimming memories as I was the first woman to swim around Manhattan back in 1975!). (link)
After CNN catches her in her Manhattan lie a year later, she posts the classic, “History Rewritten….to my GREAT Surprise!” Nyad hems and haws and hems some more, concluding that, “even though we don’t yet know the absolute truth as to that history [of the Manhattan swim], I hereby relinquish my title as the first woman.”
Diana Says Things
Some of the things she says are so bonkers that they could only come no one else.
The English Channel is “passé”
In 2012, Nyad posted about her interview on National Public Radio’s “The Story.” She told host Dick Gordon that “the English Channel . . . is a little bit passé now.”
Nyad attempted the Channel three times and quit three times. Besides saying it’s passé, she has also said it’s “highly overrated.” She once said that she “held all the major records on planet Earth, out in the open sea,” which would presumably include the au courant English Channel, the best-known marathon swim in the world. You can hear the interview here (archived here).
TED-Flavored Kool-Aid
Nyad called this post “TEDMED.” HuffPost reprinted it as “Drinking the Kool-Aid That is TEDMED”:
If you haven’t yet sipped the TED Kool-Aid, get yourself a straw. I’ve been a public speaker for 35 years now but hit the Mt Everest of conferences when I spoke for the TEDMED group this past October. The concept is 50 speakers, the most forward-thinking mavericks on our planet.
. . .
Trust me. Get your straw ready and immerse yourself in the exciting zeitgeist of TED.
Trust me, Nyad’s no forward-thinking maverick; she’s a run-of-the-mill con artist. To get what she wants, she uses the public’s gullibility and its ignorance of her sport. Her own ignorance may account for her deafness to the connotations of “Drinking the Kool-Aid.”
The End
A fitting one courtesy of Catherine Opie:
