Nyad - Find a way

T he chanting begins in a gentle chorus and grows to an adrenaline-fueled frenzy. Our voices emanate from the dock at Marina Hemingway in a resounding boom, sweeping over the cobblestoned streets of Old Havana, wafting across the sea toward faraway U.S. shores.

The Xtreme Dream Team is thirty-five strong. We are huddled. Closest to me in the center is Bonnie. And Candace. And Mark. And John. They are my lifeline.

I yell. The cadence falls in:

Where we swimming FROM?

They answer:

CUBA!!

I pump it up a notch:

Where we swimming TO?

They escalate:

FLORIDA!!!!!!!

We are giddy with faith. Our secular version of a religious revival, the congregation chanting in a fever. We are as one. This will be Our Time. Our collective passion catapults us into an altered state of zeal. Our voices pump through the humid late afternoon of a sultry day in Havana, September 23, 2011. We are believers.

The crew scatters to their respective boats while I return to the hotel room. They need to be through customs and waiting for me to swim out of the mouth of Marina Hemingway Harbor in two hours.

I go back to the silent rituals. Hydrating. Yoga. Stretches. Deep breathing. A meditation of calm and focus. I am talking to myself, very slowly. I inhale with one syllable, exhale with the next, imbuing my brain with the mandates of this possibly impossible endeavor, this endeavor that drives my life force:

Take every minute, one at a time. Dont be fooled by a perfect sea at any given moment. Accept and rise to whatever circumstance presents itself. Be in it full tilt, your best self. Summon your courage, your true grit. When the body fades, dont let negative edges of despair creep in. Allowing flecks of negativity leads to a Pandoras box syndrome. You cant stop the doubts once you consent to let them seep into your tired, weakened brain. You must set your will. Set it now. Let nothing penetrate or cripple it.

I visualize pulling on a titanium helmet before the first stroke. This is my will. This strength of mind cannot be diminished. We think, after our two failures, that we know every possible roadblock that can emerge to thwart our journey, yet it is truly a vast, unfathomably powerful wilderness out there. This is a swimmers Mount Everest, the great epic ocean endeavor of our blue planet. Its never been done. Strong swimmers have been questing across this ocean since 1950. No one has made it all the way across unaided.

You can do this. You will do this. The mantra takes on a rhythm with each breath, through the toe touches, the shoulder rotations. The body is warming, loosening. The mind is steeling. The spirit is reaching its necessary, indomitable plateau.

Bonnie and I, silent together in the austere, Communist Hotel Acuario room, go about our business. I have a blanket spread out on the floor. Neck circles, hamstring reaches, trunk twists. I drink a few ounces of water in between each exercise. My robe is ready, goggles in one pocket, cap in the other. Yet I still check to see theyre there, neurotically, over and over. My suit is hanging on a hook next to the robe. The surreal feeling is coming on. I am ultra-aware of the molecules of oxygen traveling with each long sip of air to the bottom of the solar plexus, then the carbon dioxide inching back up toward my lips. The folds of the robe, revealing the words Fearless Nyad across the back, appear as a million puffs of fleece and cotton Ive never noticed before. The cool water streams down my throat as if drop following individual drop. Bonnies voice every few minutes is a steady, low-register, checking in. Monosyllables. We dont need to talk. Its all been said. Were ready.

Candace pays me a soulful last visit. Im the lucky one. Two lifelong best friends. Candaces touch imparts a wave of calm as she lays her hands on my shoulders, my neck. She is breathing slowly, deeply and that makes me take on her rhythm. She settles my nerves. She heads off to her boat, assures me shell be there every stroke of the way.

The golf cart shows up at four forty-five p.m., right on time to take us to the start. Bonnie and I sit close. Silent. We know our friendly driver, Jorge. He doesnt say a word. He understands. The significance of the moment is palpable. When we come around the corner and see the ocean, we share the surge of hope simultaneously and dare to exchange a knowing glance. Its flat as glass. The reflection of clouds stands still on the surface, all the way to the horizon. We know better than to imagine we will have sixty hours of this perfection. Or thirty. Or ten. Or two, for that matter. But for this moment, the vision of this calm washes over us like fairy-dust magic, perhaps an omen for many hours of smooth swimming ahead.

My big bear, my dear friend El Comodoro Jos Miguel Escrich of Havana, and my cherished friend from Mexico, Kathy Loretta, our Xtreme Dream Cuba Ops Chief, are waiting for me at the rocks. The start will be a plunge off the boulders that line the mouth of famous Marina Hemingway, where Ernest Hemingway himself fished, drank, and told bon vivant tales, where the Kennedy clan and Sinatras Rat Pack and Mafia dons partied many nights away on luxury yachts before the Revolution of 1959. The place shimmers with textured fables, which is of course a big part of the allure of this crossing. The natural rock wall, first buttressed to protect this island country from pirates and invasion, has by now kept Cubans in as much as it has kept others out. To swim all the way from one nation to another, from this particular forbidden land to my home country, to fully comprehend the lives of so many Cubans who left this very shore, in makeshift rafts in the middle of the night, speaks a compelling drama. Apolitical as I am, its a drama written by impactful events that has always gripped me.