Diana Nyad on the way to capturing elusive dream

Sunday 61-year-old American Diana Nyad embarked on an epic 103 mile swim from Havana, Cuba to Key West and will be the first person ever to do it without the protection of a shark cage.

Nyad will be swimming across the Straits of Florida for 4 days in a row with no sleep and is scheduled to reach the Keys on Wednesday. That is a short time considering that the US and Cuba still have no formal diplomatic relations which caused a negotiation agreement to allow the swim from taking place to be carried on for over a year.

In the 1970s Nyad was known as one of the world's greatest long-distance swimmers and first attempted the daring swim in 1978 when she was 28 years old. Now at age 61 Nyad gives the shark-infested swim a second try in hopes of capturing what Nyad calls an "Elusive Dream."

"All my life I dreamed of being the first one ever to swim across without a shark cage," Nyad said. "I never thought I'd come back to this sport. It's a gruelling sport - it's for the young."

Although Nyad retired from competitive swimming 30 years ago, she will be fulfilling a lifelong dream when she successfully accomplishes the stunt.