The Travel Channel says it will air a segment on the Grove City baker who swam from Cuba to Florida at age 65 in 1978 in an attempted peace gesture.
Walter Poenisch persuaded Cuban leader Fidel Castro to let him make the 34 hour, 128.8-mile crossing. Castro gave Poenisch a souvenir cigar to commemorate the swim. The segment tonight will explain why one of Castro's cigars is in the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Poenisch died in the year 2000 at age 86 and was posthumously inducted into the hall of fame in 2017.
