MAY 12th - Pretty Much Like Being in The Odyssey



On this day in 1997, 22 year-old Australian, Susie Maroney became the first woman to swim from Cuba to Florida. She swam for 24 and ½ hours inside a cage to protect her from sharks, suffering from dehydration and jellyfish stings along the way, as evident by the fact that she passed out on live television just four hours later. It’s an impressive feat, to say the least. I’m not quite sure what would make one want to attempt it. Perhaps, it was just a mini-Forrest Gump moment. I mean she was Australian, so this wasn’t an Elian Gonzalez thing. How much would that situation have heightened if that kid had swam from Cuba? Probably not at all, considering his trip was no picnic, and claimed the life of his mother. But if that little dude had breast stroked all the way from Cuba to Florida, we would have had to let him stay, right? But barring trying to escape a Communist regime, I really don’t understand why you would want to swim for over 24 hrs. This wasn’t Susie’s first foray into long distance nature swimming, as she swam the English Channel at age 15. And she hasn’t been the only person to swim from Cuba to Florida. However, she’s the only one who did it on this date. And while I still think being in the water for that long is some form of insanity, it does show how resilient the human body can be. That’s as good a reason as any, I guess. Plus Susie made an obscure humor/history blog 18 years later. That’s close to immortality. Pretty much like being Odysseus in The Odyssey.

This day has been Marked.

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