A 64-year-old American long-distance swimmer has become the first person to swim from Cuba to the United States without a shark cage. Diana Nyad successfully crossed the 166 kilometre-long Florida Straits from Cuba. She came ashore in Key West yesterday, about 53 hours after setting off from Havana. Her crew said, it was her fifth attempt in 35 years to make the crossing and set a record for the longest ocean swim without a shark cage or flippers. Her four other tries – one in 1978, two in 2011 and one in 2012 – had failed.