From Swimming to Saving The Ocean, Diana Nyad Talks Perseverance

“It's up to me to look inside and decide what I'm capable of.”

That’s Diana Nyad’s attitude, whether she’s swimming more than 100 miles in dangerous open water or raising awareness about the damage caused by single-use plastics.

It was Nyad’s famous 2013 swim, depicted in the film Nyad, that led to her and Stoll founding the nonprofit EverWalk.

Bonnie Stoll (left) and Diana Nyad (right) at an EverWalk event in Washigton, D.C.

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Courtesy of EverWalk

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“Bonnie and I swam across a lot of the blue planet,” Nyad said. “When we were out there, we were in the midst of thinking about what we can do, and how can we can make the most our lives. And when we finished, we thought, ‘we want to take people on that same kind of journey.’”

You can take a journey of your own with Nyad and Stoll this weekend — though this one will be on land and by foot. Their latest event is the Nyad OceanWalk 10K Sunday in Santa Monica.

It’s all part of EverWalk’s mission to get people out and connected to their surroundings through walking.

Why plastic pollution?

While California is enacting legislation to reduce single-use plastic, it is estimated that around the world, 11 million metric tons of plastic ends up in the ocean each year.

Fish swim alongside plastic pollution

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Naja Bertolt Jensen

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Unsplash

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Nyad and Stoll say they're concerned how plastic is contributing to climate change and polluting our waterways.

While they have spent a lot of time out in the ocean, Stoll told LAist that one doesn’t have to go far to see the impact of plastic.

“All you have to do is walk on the beach and all you see are bottle caps from single use plastic. It's awful and devastating,” she said.

Lessons in perseverance

Nyad and Stoll see parallels between completing a 100 mile ocean swim and the fight to reduce plastic pollution and climate change, or really, any task that appears too big.

It took multiple attempts for Nyad to complete the whole trip from Cuba to Florida, including a couple in the 1970s.

Bonnie Stoll and Diana Nyad after completing the 2013 swim from Cuba to Florida

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Courtesy of Diana Nyad and Bonnie Stoll

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“So someone says you're 64 years old, you can't swim that, you didn't even make that when you were 28? Well, that's their opinion,” Nyad said. “Bonnie and I, we believed we were going to get to the other side when the whole world said it'll never be done. And look what happened, we made it to the other side.”