Three and a half hours before the swim, at 4:15pm, outside Club Nautico, Diana takes me aside on the patio. She’s talking to me but she’s also talking to you: “I was pretty centered, and just now I’m beginning to feel the real adrenalin flowing. We had been planning for 3 days or so in Cuba, to be together, to relax, get ready, but it just isn’t turning out that way. I think it’s just as well we’re going tonight, probably better.” Yesterday we were all in a panic, with the conditions forecasted suddenly turning good and most of the crew having left for home, not everyone was able to make it for the start. Diana’s missing one paddler for the shark-protective kayak; she still has three of the divers, not as many as were planned, and apparently one of the planned boats was chartered in the meantime by someone else and is gone. “All the oxygen tanks were on that boat,” said Diana. “But we’ll just go with what we’ve got and I’m OK with it.

“I’ve decided to be at peace with it no matter what happens. If there’s weather, waves, a squall, I’m not going to think about my arms above the water. I’m going to say to myself don’t worry about what is happening above water, just get your arms under it and push.” — Diana

Blogged by Candace Lyle Hogan