Australian Chloe McCardel's Attempt to Swim From Cuba to Florida Ends With Jellyfish

Australian Marathon Swimmer Chloe McCardel failed in an attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida across the Florida Strait 11 hours into her 60-hour journey, after being stung repeatedly by jellyfish.

McCardel was attempting to become the first marathon swimmer to complete the feat without the use of a shark cage, but found herself caught in a swarm of the brainless stinging creatures. After crying out that she was paralyzed, her husband and trainer pulled her aboard the nearby support boat, thus aborting her bid.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Melbourne-based swimmer had been stung around the neck, arms, back, mouth and tongue.

"It was like 2.5 hours of the worst pain, continuously," McCardel told the paper. "It's like fireballs in every fiber."

She also immediately wrote off the idea of trying again at a later date, stating, "I'm not coming back. That's it."

The distance from Havana to the Florida Keys - McCardel's attempted swim - is 103 miles (166 kilometers). The English Channel - between England and France - is  another hotspot for marathon swimming, is comparatively longer (350 miles), and has been crossed repeatedly. McCardel herself has double-crossed it twice.

The Caribbean waters between Cuba and Florida however, are decidedly more treacherous, with box jellyfish and sharks in droves.

According to the Guardian, the Florida Strait has been busy the past three summers, with fellow marathon swimmers Diana Nyad and Penny Palfrey making four failed attempts at the crossing between them since 2011. Australian Susie Maroney successfully made the swim in 1997, though she did it with the benefit of a shark cage.

During the Balsero Crisis of 1993-1994, over 7,000 Cubans braved the waters with makeshift rafts in the hopes of making the same journey to free land in the states. During the height of that exodus, the US Coast Guard reported picking up as many as 3,000 Cuban national per day in the water off the coast of Florida.