I'm Gail Strav and you're listening to She Explores.

I feel so alive. I feel so happy. I feel so

so comforted and so comfortable in the ocean and I don't know why all the time I don't understand because it seems like this place that maybe many people fear and many people feel are dangerous but for me it feels like one of the most

safe and joyful places I can be in the world in any body of water you know in the

rivers and the lakes and I just love the feeling of it.

This is Olivia Van Dam.

Among many things, she's an educator, poet, singer, environmentalist, and surfer.

Olivia is also a contributor to women in water, the new book from the team behind she explores.

If you're curious to learn more, you can head to our website she hyphen

explorers.com or you can listen to one of the recent interviews right here on our

feed. As you'll hear in our conversation, Olivia's passion for the ocean and

curiosity about the environment is a throughline in everything she does.

Whether talking about her love of surfing, her work with California Academy of Sciences, or community science, her

excitement is palpable.

I was trying to sum up a descriptor for Olivia after our conversation, and what came to mind was this.

Olivia is committed.

She's committed to her work, to her exploration of self, and to her investigation of the

many overlaps that exist in this big beautiful world.

Let's get to know Olivia. Okay, well, Olivia, welcome to She Explorers. Okay, thank you for having me.

Of course. Olivia, welcome to She Explorers. Okay, thank you for having me.

Of course.

So I would just love you to start off

...