{"id":668,"date":"2019-10-27T13:52:49","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T13:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nyadfactcheck.com\/annex\/2019\/10\/27\/nyad-at-the-ebell-part-2-it-was-always-cuba-the-bartlett-pair-and-other-myths\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T15:22:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:22:29","slug":"nyad-at-the-ebell-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyadfactcheck.com\/annex\/nyad-at-the-ebell-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Nyad at the Ebell, part 2: It was Always Cuba, The Bartlett Pair, and Other Myths"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Warning:<\/em> This post contains profanity\u2014mostly \u201cbullshit,\u201d because Diana Nyad utters mainly that.<\/p>\n

\u00a1Cuba Siempre!\u00a0<\/em><\/h3>\n

After claiming to have been \u201cthe best ocean swimmer in the world\u201d (see previous post<\/a>), Nyad takes a step back to admire her grandeur and finds it wanting:<\/p>\n

I held all the major records on planet Earth, uh, out in the open sea. But for me, all those were in one category\u2014the Bay of Naples, the swims along the Argentine coast\u2014all respectable, tough swims. But it was always about Cuba for me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Image via the website of the North American Tiddlywinks Association<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That\u2019s pile of bullshit #1\u2014it was never<\/em> about Cuba. It was always about fame and adoration. How she achieved those things mattered not at all. If she could have gained world-wide attention playing tiddlywinks, she would have done so gladly\u2014fewer jellyfish that way.<\/p>\n

Nyad implies in her 2015 memoir,\u00a0 Find a Way<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0 that she went all-in on Cuba shortly after her 1975 Manhattan triumph. Newspaper accounts, however, tell a different story. By the summer of 1976, Nyad had no thoughts of swimming from Cuba to Florida:<\/p>\n

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She has great plans: the [English] Channel this year; then there are the Great Lakes, and she\u2019d like to swim through the Bermuda Triangle to see what happens. (San Antonio Star<\/em><\/a>, 12 Sep 1976)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

February of 1977\u2014and still no thoughts of Cuba. She had, in fact, begun working an entirely new racket:<\/p>\n

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Because she has become the best at it, Diana has begun to lose interest in swimming. She is now devoting her time and energy to becoming champion in another sport\u2014\u00a0 squash. (Glamour<\/a>, <\/em>Feb 1977. Note that Diana\u2019s good friend and enabler Candace Hogan wrote this piece, hence the \u201cbest at it\u201d buy-in.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Then a Cuba swim occurs to her\u2014or, more likely, to her publicist\u2014but it\u2019s not a heart thing:<\/p>\n

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The 27-year-old talks confidently about attempting a swim from Cuba to Miami in the summer of next year\u2026. She says she wants to do it for the thrill of having done it, of course, and the pride the feat will give her. But there are other reasons, too. Her manager has told her the event is a publicist\u2019s dream\u2026. (Family Weekly<\/a>, <\/em>27 Mar 1977)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cuba swim has tremendous commercial potential,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will be big enough to keep me on the talk show circuit for a year.\u201d (The Star<\/em><\/a>, 4 July 1978)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If that doesn\u2019t pan out, though, how about Greece?<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t care if it\u2019s the Aegean Sea or another Cuba to Florida run or what it is. It\u2019s got to be 100 miles of open ocean water, from land to land.\u201d (Minneapolis Tribune<\/em><\/a>, 10 Feb 1980)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After ostensibly succeeding in her 2013 Cuba-Florida attempt, Nyad rearranges another timeline. \u201cScrew the truth,\u201d she seems to be saying, \u201cit just impedes narrative flow.\u201d In Find a Way, <\/em>you\u2019ll find nothing about those swims in the Great Lakes, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Aegean. Finally, it\u2019s all about Cuba.<\/p>\n

Just after describing how she had become \u201cthe first woman to swim around Manhattan\u201d (Find a Way<\/em>, p.<\/em> 66), Nyad writes:<\/p>\n

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It was time to get focused. Candace and I gathered the charts of the Earth\u2019s oceans on the floor of our Upper West Side apartment\u2026.<\/p>\n

I remember it as if it were yesterday. My eyes swept the charts and, zowie, there it was. Cuba.\u201d (p. 69)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Like much of what Nyad describes in Find a Way<\/em>, that did not happen. (See, for instance, giant flying squid \u201cgrabbing birds out of the air,\u201d etc., in \u201cFrom Bimini to the Big Apple: The Lies in Find a Way<\/em><\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

If this was always about anything, it was about the Olympics, Diana\u2019s ur-dream. But Nyad never had the speed to qualify.\u00a0 She couldn\u2019t let herself believe that, though, so she made up a story about a debilitating illness<\/a>. Then she came up with a consolation prize:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my Olympics,\u201d she says matter-of-factly\u2026. \u201cThe Cuban swim is the greatest endurance feat in human history. But if anyone can do it, I can.\u201d (Philadelphia Enquirer<\/a>, 10 Aug 1978)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Bartlett\u2019s Thumbs<\/h3>\n

That first day was glorious\u2026. John Bartlett, our genius navigator, was out of the navigation cabin all day with his thumbs up.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t see that one minute\u2014not a minute!\u2014not a minute of the other four previous attempts. He was ecstatic; he\u2019s usually despondent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Point #1: Diana Nyad was in no position to see this. She was busy swimming (or not). She often talks about sensory deprivation, so she was also busy being sensorially deprived. Thus, she would not have seen John Bartlett\u2019s thumbs, even if such a vision was to be had.<\/p>\n

Point #2: The two people in the best position to see John Bartlett\u2019s thumbs, the swim\u2019s observers, never mention them. Previous to the Ebell speech, the only mention of that particular Bartlett pair comes on the second day:<\/p>\n

As the sun climbed higher on Day 2, she passed the 24-hour mark\u2026. By noon, the Gulf Stream current had increased to 3.8 knots and turned in a more northeasterly direction, with a counterclockwise-churning eddy to the west \u2014 \u201cJust what we\u2019d hoped for,\u201d said Bartlett, beaming and flashing a thumbs-up to the crew. (Miami Herald<\/a>, 17 Sep 2013)<\/p>\n

And I see Bartlett\u2019s head peering out his window, right above the Handler\u2019s station. He gives me a big thumbs-up, that grin still beaming ear to ear. (Find a Way<\/a>, p. 261)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Point #3: Why does this matter? Because Diana wants to rewrite history again. She wants us to think that Bartlett knew about the magic current from day one and that he couldn\u2019t help but comment digitally. The magic current, however, doesn\u2019t turn up until days after the swim\u2014by which time Diana and her associates have realized that their stream of bullshit hasn\u2019t carried everyone along. (For more on this, see \u201cCountering the Currents<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Nyad\u2019s Secret Stash<\/h3>\n

You know, it\u2019s been six years now since the stumble up on that beach. And I do remember it because it was so hard to do. But the real truth is I don\u2019t want to spend the rest of my life sitting around watching footage of the Cuba swim.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What footage? Most of the film from Diana\u2019s crossing went missing shortly after her amble up Smathers Beach<\/a>. Maybe Diana stashed all the video in the same bank vault she claims to have hidden her GPS trackers (Find a<\/em> Way<\/em>, p. 278).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we mortals have to make do with scraps, often from previous swims:<\/p>\n

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