I didn't grow up near a coastline so I was an adult before I began to even think about

the ocean and maybe that's why I've got such a funny relationship to it or maybe this

is common I don't know but I am so deeply drawn to the water and its enormity the mysteries

that lurk underneath it while also terrified of those mysteries and that's just the sharks

and jellyfish and undercurrents and all that those physical dangers do shake me trust but I'm

talking about something spookier there's so much history in that water so much lost memory

a new podcast and reporting project from National Geographic invites us to rediscover some of

those memories it's called Into the Depths and it's hosted by National Geographic Storyteller

and Explorer Tara Roberts she follows a group of black scuba divers and ocean archaeologists

who are hunting for the wreckage of slave ships but she ends up on quite an emotional journey of

her own as a black woman trying to connect with her ancestry Tara welcome to the show thank you

for having me so this project was actually two years in the making and it all started at the

National Museum of African American History in DC when you saw an image on the wall of these black

scuba divers mostly women I believe tell us about that image and why it struck you so much

it's a little crazy guy because it's a great picture but some kind of way that picture

like it went up a level in my imagination and I actually thought I saw something that wasn't there

like in my imagination when I saw that picture it was like the women were standing up on the boat

they had keeps on their hair was flowing in the wind wow for whatever reasons those women

capes it was literally like the capes were blowing in the wind and they were standing up there

looking like superheroes that's how I remembered the photo and then a couple of years later I was

like oh let me go look at that picture again and I was like it looks nothing like what it did

in my imagination and it's still a great picture but there was something about seeing these black

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