You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks audio.

This talk features journalist and swimmer Diana Nyad, recorded live at TED Women 2013.

We're featuring this talk today as part of a special selection themed around journeys.

It's the fifth time I stand on this shore, the Cuban shore, looking out at that distant horizon, believing again that I'm going to make it all the way across that vast, dangerous wilderness of an ocean.

Not only have I tried four times, but the greatest swimmers in the world have been trying since

1950, and it's still never been done.

The team is proud of our four attempts.

It's an expedition of some 30 people.

Bonnie is my best friend and head handler who somehow summons will,

that last drop of will within me when I think it's gone

after many, many hours and days out there.

The shark experts are the best in the world, large predators below.

Now the box jellyfish, the deadliest venom in all of the ocean, is in these waters,

and I have come close to dying from them on a previous attempt.

The conditions themselves besides the sheer distance of over 100 miles in the open ocean,

currents and whirling eddies and the Gulf Stream itself, the most unpredictable of all of the planet Earth.

And by the way, it's amusing to me that journalists and people, you know, before these attempts

often, you know, ask me, well, are you going to go with any boats or any people or anything?

And I'm thinking, what are they imagining that I'll just sort of do some celestial navigation

and, you know, carry a buoy knife in my mouth

and I'll hunt fish and skin them alive and, you know, eat them

and maybe drag a desalinization plant behind me for fresh water.

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