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Women Making History: Diving, oceanic programs on tap

By Darby Hinkley 8 min read

The first woman to dive in all 50 states will be one of two speakers in a pair of webinar programs hosted by NOAA's Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The second speaker is an oceanic journalist and professional photographer and diver.

In celebration of Women's History Month, organizers are bringing in two Women Making History who have made a big splash in male-dominated fields.

Thursday: Jennifer Idol

This Thursday, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., Jennifer Idol, professional underwater photographer, videographer and visual storyteller, will discuss how her work connects people to the natural world so they can experience its wonders.

This is the first in a webinar series honoring Women's History Month being hosted by NOAA's Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in collaboration with NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. The Women's Giving Circle of the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan is sponsoring this webinar series.

Idol's book, "An American Immersion," documents her quest to become the first woman to dive 50 states. Her work has been shared in periodicals such as Diver, Scuba Diving, and Alert Diver. Idol's connection to local waters, including several national marine sanctuaries, led to her being recognized as a PADI Ambassadiver (2017 and 2018), and as a member of the Ocean Artists Society and the Explorer's Club.

"Although exploration is traditionally viewed as traveling to exotic and distant locations, it refers to discovery of the unexpected," Idol said.

She will discuss how local waters can be redefined through exploration and influence how we manage these resources.

"In doing my 50-state journey, one of the things I supported and promoted was looking at local waters through a new lens, figuratively, and looking at exploration in those waters, and abroad, with new eyes," Idol said. "An example of this would be the paddlefish expedition I lead in Tennessee. You wouldn't expect Tennessee to be a destination where I draw people from all over the world."

Paddlefish are prehistoric fish related to sturgeons, Idol explained.

"The American species is the only remaining species of paddlefish," she said. "The Asian species was declared extinct in 2017. So, I lead trips, and through my photography and storytelling, help people understand the importance of things like that. And it's often right in their own backyard."

She is based out of Austin, Texas.

It took Idol four years, six months and two days to dive all 50 states, and Michigan was her last stop, as she dove in the Straits of Mackinac in 2015.

"Alaska diving was amazing with the salmon sharks," Idol added. "Diving with the world's fastest shark is pretty exhilarating. They are cousins to makos and great white sharks, so they're an impressive mackerel shark."

She free dives with the sharks wearing a dry suit. The sharks are 8- to 12-feet long.

She became inspired to dive all 50 states after Deepwater Horizon, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

"I started the journey because of Deepwater Horizon," she said.

"I love the freedom of underwater exploration, and I love looking at really strange life," Idol said, "and understanding how it all fits together."

She said being a woman in diving can present challenges, but more and more women are getting into it.

"It's traditionally a male-dominated sport that originated out of military diving," Idol noted. "And the culture of diving has evolved over time. Recreational divers have more and more women being drawn to the sport."

However, professional underwater photography and filmography are still male-dominated fields, she said.

"I am pioneering some of these things for others to follow or create their own trajectory," she said.

For more information, visit Idol's website at uwdesigner.com.

To register for Thursday's program, click on this link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1554085332617001486 and enter this webinar ID: 582-729-659.

March 25: Alex Rose

On Thursday, March 25 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., hear from Alexandra Rose, science editor and professional photographer for Ocean Geographic Magazine and Blue Ring.

Rose is an underwater enthusiast dedicated to protecting our world's most precious marine habitats through diving, writing, photography, education, and research. She is science editor for Ocean Geographic Magazine, managing editor for Ocean Geographic Explorers, founder of Blue Ring, as well as a professional photographer, violinist, Explorers Club Fellow, and PADI Divemaster.

She will discuss how maximizing and leveraging the experiences we gain through travel can illuminate, inspire, and generate change.

"Pictures have the power to convince the unconvinced -- the ways we tell our stories can have major impacts on the people around us," Rose said.

This year marks only the 40th anniversary of women being accepted in the Explorers Club, an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to exploration, founded in 1904.

"In four decades, hundreds of incredible women around the world have been recognized as members and fellows, and it's an honor and responsibility for me to continue advancing this legacy," Rose said.

Rose is the science editor at Ocean Geographic, out of Australia, and she's been with them for about seven years, starting as a freelance writer. She founded Blue Ring, an ocean conservation company, in 2017.

As science editor at Ocean Geographic, she gets to travel all over the world, do underwater photography, and write environmental journalism pieces, she said.

Rose is based out of Chicago. During the pandemic, she has not been able to travel as she normally does.

Some of her travels have taken her to Indonesia, the high Arctic, and the tiny remote Pacific island of Clipperton Atoll.

Rose said it took a 100-hour boat ride to get to the atoll, which, despite having no human inhabitants, is "covered in plastic" that has washed up on shore from hundreds of miles away.

"Clipperton Atoll is one of the most remote islands on the planet," Rose said. "It takes about 100 hours to get there from Mexico … it is in the middle of the Pacific nowhere."

Seeing all that plastic on a tiny 8-mile-long island was shocking.

"It's the perfect illustration of how a single-use plastic lifestyle, globally, will impact places all over the planet, even if we've never actually lived there or touched them ourselves," she noted.

"The Arctic is another one I'll be talking about, just because it's one of those places where you really can see the climate changing in real time," Rose said. "And that's both scary and very useful, because when you can measure something by how you see it, it has much more of a chance of connecting with people, and actually resonating in a way that generates change."

Her focus is travel with a purpose.

"I'm going to be telling stories about places that I've been lucky enough to go for work, and the stories that I bring back with me, and how I hope they will positively impact the people who hear them," Rose said.

She said everyone can make small changes in their own lifestyles that will add up to a healthier world. Small steps like not using a straw or any single-use plastics definitely can have a positive impact on the environment.

To register for the March 25 program, click on this link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/566212617970098704 and enter this webinar ID: 195-491-875.

"These will be virtual programs, so if you miss them, they will be available after," said TBNMS Maritime Archaeologist and Media Coordinator Stephanie Gandulla. "And they're free and really exciting. Each of these women had a film in our film festival, and they're avid scuba divers. Both of them have dove, literally, all over the world."

The film Idol and Rose collaborated on was about diving in Yellowstone National Park, called "Protected Waters: Exploring Yellowstone," shown at this year's Thunder Bay International Film Festival.

"What's really neat is they really connected with the sanctuary's philosophy of connecting people to our special places underwater," Gandulla said. "And that's what we're all about here, is creating accessibility to these special places … and encouraging people to continue to protect these special places underwater."

Gandulla said these young women are making history while bringing awareness to underwater conservation issues. "We're just thrilled to bring them to the sanctuary audiences," she added.

"These are pretty impressive women," said Katie Wolf, community relations and outreach coordinator for TBNMS. "Both Jennifer Idol and Alexandra Rose are relatively young women doing amazing things. I think a lot of times when people think Women's History Month, they think of years ago, so this is a great way for people who are alive and active right now to see that they, too, can be a part of shaping our history."

Gandulla and Wolf hope they inspire more women to follow their dreams and set out on their own adventures.

"These women are incredibly inspiring and motivating," Wolf added. "You will listen and want to get out and explore on your own."

Those who can't dive or travel worldwide can learn from their visual stories.

"Their photography is out of this world," Wolf said. "It's truly spectacular."

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