I'm Alan Alder, and this is clear and vivid conversations about connecting and communicating.

Approximately 1.8 million Africans died just in the crossing from Africa to the Americas. I also learned

that there were 12,000 ships that brought Africans to the Americas, but I realized I didn't

know a name of a single one of those ships when

I was growing up, but yet I could tell you all about the Mayflower, I could tell you about the

Titanic, but I couldn't tell you about any of those ships. So all of this made me feel like

there's a story to tell here, and maybe I can do it.

That's Tara Roberts.

Over the course of our 360-plus episodes, we've had a lot of great storytellers on Clear and Vivid,

and Tara is one of the best, and she has an amazing story to tell.

It's led her to appearing on the cover of National Geographic

magazine as a member of a group of African-American divers exploring the wrecks of slave ships.

She's written a book about her experience called Written in the Waters.

Tara, you've had a really interesting career, an editor at big important magazines, a writer, an award-winning explorer.

How do you get to be an explorer?

I have to say, like, it all happened by accident, believe it or not.

I didn't plan for this. It just happened by accident. Your book begins

with a visit to the American Museum of African American History. Is that a crucial moment in the

story of how you got to where you are now? Yeah, it is. The visit to that museum changed my life.

I had been living in D.C.

I had just moved to Washington, D.C. in the year, it was 2016,

and I just moved for a new job, working in the nonprofit sector.

...