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Reknowned distance swimmer Diana Nyad {wiki} is almost 62 years old. But she is swimming today, off the coast of Cuba, heading to Key West. She entered the water just before Sunset last night. This time, instead of a shark cage, she will be surrounded by an electronic shark deterrent. The swim, if successful, is expected to take 60 hours. Link
CNN has an interactive map with which you can follow her progress. Link
Update: Nyad abandoned her attempt about halfway through. Link
The Art of Manliness has a step-by-step guide on “How to Swim, Dive, Climb, and Swing Like the Lord of the Apes.” It’s very detailed.
In the movies, Tarzan always uses the front crawl stroke (what we often call the freestyle). And with good reason. The front crawl (aka the forward, American or Australian crawl) is the fastest and most efficient of all the swim strokes. Swimming is such an essential Tarzan skill that the movie producers back in the 1930s brought in Johnny Weissmuller, a five-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming, to play the role of Tarzan.
The technique for the Tarzan front crawl is pretty basic. Float face down in the water with both arms stretched out in front of you. This is the starting position. Flutter your legs alternately in short, up and down thrashes. The arms move in alternating sweeping strokes. The arm movement can be broken down into three parts: pull, push, and recovery.
There’s even a bonus section on how to emulate Tarzan’s (or, specifically, Johnny Weismuller’s) distinctive yell. Link -via Gorilla Mask
The Dolphin Research Center in Marathon, Florida is where people can swim with the well cared-for marine mammals, but it’s much more than that. It’s a rescue operation for not only dolphins, but sea turtles, manatees and other Florida Keys species. When the dolphins aren’t busy with that, or doing their research, they maintain an informative blog, where they post videos of themselves like this one. Amazingly smart creatures.
Seriously though, the DRC is top tier when it comes to places like this. Here’s a snip from Hannah’s five star review on Yelp:
After an afternoon at this terrific research center, I learned more about dolphins than I ever thought I’d know. We came here as a group, with the BF and his parents. For $20 a person, you get admission, which allows you to walk through the center and watch the public shows. The place is very low key – it’s obvious that all their money goes towards taking care of the dolphins,and not on frills.
Link (Photo: DRC)
Super Tight Stuff blog has a nifty list of ten of the coolest places to swim around the world. Whether it is the Yangbajain hot springs in China, Jellyfish Lake in the island nation of Palau, or Bioluminescent Bay in Puerto Rico, I guarantee that something on this list will blow your mind:
1. Bioluminescent Bay
Located in Puerto Rico, on Vieques Island, there is a shallow body of water with a narrow inlet known as Mosquito Bay. In each gallon of the bay there are 720,000 phosphorescent single-celled organisms that glow when they are agitated. It is a defense mechanism — the glowing is designed to daze whatever predator is bothering the tiny dinoflagellates. All together the bay, on a moonless night, will produce more than enough light to read. Swimming in Mosquito Bay will cause your limbs to be bathed in blue-green light. If you stop moving the light will dim, and eventually disappear completely, but each time you twitch it begins anew. Every time your kayak moves it too will be illuminated. It’s also easy to spot larger creatures; when manta rays or large jellies enter the mangrove swamps gentle rings of light form around them. If you scoop up a handful of the water you can watch individual glowing plankton roll down your arms and hands. And the salinity of the water is high enough you can float sitting upright.
From the Upcoming 
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Jennifer Figge from Aspen, Colorado, accomplished a feat never done before by a female: swim across the Atlantic Ocean. A decade earlier French swimmer Benoit Lecomte made the first known solo-Atlantic swim from Massachusetts to France in 73 days.
Reaching a beach in Trinidad, she became the first woman on record to swim across the Atlantic Ocean — a dream she’d had since the early 1960s, when a stormy trans-Atlantic flight got her thinking she could don a life vest and swim the rest of the way if needed.
The 56-year-old left the Cape Verde Islands off Africa’s western coast on Jan. 12, battling waves of up to 30 feet (9 meters) and strong winds.
David Higdon, a friend of Figge who kept in touch with her via satellite phone, said she had originally planned to swim the Bahamas, but inclement weather forced her to veer 1,000 miles (1,610 kms) off course to Trinidad, where she arrived on Feb. 5.
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