56-year-old becomes first woman to swim Atlantic

[lovedesire]

Jennifer Figge pressed her toes into the Caribbean sand, exhilarated and exhausted as she touched land this week for the first time in almost a month.

Reaching a beach in Trinidad, she became the first woman on record to swim across the Atlantic Ocean -- a dream she'd had since the early 1960s, when a stormy trans-Atlantic flight got her thinking she could don a life vest and swim the rest of the way if needed.

The 56-year-old left the Cape Verde Islands off Africa's western coast on January 12, swimming about 3,380 km through strong winds and waves of up to 9 metres.

She now plans to swim from Trinidad to the British Virgin Islands, ending her odyssey at the Bitter End Yacht Club in late February.

Then it's home to Aspen, Colorado -- where she trained for months in an outdoor pool amid snowy blizzards - to reunite with her Alaskan Malamute.

"My dog doesn't know where I am," she said on Saturday. "It's time for me to get back home to Hank."

The dog swirled in her thoughts, as did family and friends, as Figge stroked through the chilly Atlantic waters escorted by a sailboat. She saw a pod of pilot whales, several turtles, dozens of dolphins, plenty of Portuguese man-of-war but no sharks.