Cookson Adventures: Top Six Yachting Destinations for Explorers
Luxury travel company, Cookson Adventures, works closely with many of the world’s leading expedition yachts to deliver ground-breaking adventures. From organizing the world’s first private submersible dive in Antarctica to discovering a new type of killer whale, Cookson Adventures is renowned for pioneering world-firsts in private luxury travel.
Neal Bateman, Head of Yachts at Cookson Adventures, explains, “We design only a small volume of trips per year, so can offer unrivaled levels of personalization when helping to design a bespoke yachting adventure. This could involve spending months negotiating trailblazing permits, providing complex logistical support or pairing clients with impactful conservation projects. Whether it’s a last-minute yacht charter or a voyage of a lifetime, our experienced team has the expertise in being able to combine both ocean and land-based adventures into a seamless itinerary, whether over a few weeks or the best part of the year”.
Neal selects six of Cookson Adventure’s favorite destinations and experiences for a unique yachting adventure. Click here to view the video gallery of Cookson Adventures.
Antarctica
Collaborating with scientists on ground-breaking new research
“One of the most extreme but rewarding destinations to visit by explorer yacht, we’ve crafted and delivered arguably some of the most complex private Antarctica expeditions of modern times, with multi-vessel and multi-heli operations. We’re always finding new ways to immerse guests in the white wilderness. Collaborating on a world-first conservation project with leading scientists is a great example of this. Clients can get a front seat to ground-breaking research, such as an expedition to tag the region’s fin and blue whales, which were once hunted to near extinction but are now starting to recover with recent sightings of large pods in recorded in Antarctica”.
Costa Rica
A conservation adventure for the family
“Costa Rica is one of our favorite tropical destinations to explore by superyacht as guests can hop between beach-fringed islands and plunge into the interior by heli to enjoy mangrove kayaking and waterfall hikes. For a family, we can tailor a series of educational experiences to teach kids more about our natural world. From tagging hammerhead sharks with marine biologists and conservationists to helping preserve local sea turtle populations and swimming with megapods of spinner dolphins. Costa Rica’s lush rainforest and volcanic landscapes are a dramatic backdrop to everything from heli-rafting in the mountains to horse riding along the beach at sunset”.
Madagascar
Isolated island luxury
“Madagascar is a living time capsule, home to the world’s smallest chameleons, pristine coral reefs, lush primary rainforests and 101 species of lemur. An otherworldly island in the Indian Ocean, it’s rarely considered as a superyacht destination – but it should be. The lack of infrastructure on land means that a sophisticated vessel, together with an onboard helicopter, is the best way to be immersed into this little-explored pocket of paradise. With a superyacht as your base, you can camp out on a private island, before heading out with our dive guides to spot shipwrecks, barracudas and circling white-tip reef sharks. Madagascar may be the oldest island in the world, but its exhilarating potential for off-the-chart adventure is only just being discovered”.
Maltese islands
The Mediterranean with a difference
“The Mediterranean is the center of the yachting world every summer, but there is so much potential to experience the Med’s hotspots differently if you know where to look. Bringing in a support vessel is ideal for guests who would like to try out the experience of diving beneath the waves in a submersible, before exploring a sub-focused adventure further afield. Malta’s coastline has many sunken torpedo boats, airplanes and destroyers, due to the strategic importance the island played during the Second World War, so there is so much to explore on the ocean floor. We can bring a historian on board to bring the stories behind the wrecks to life in real-time and organize an immersive treasure hunt played out with drones, tenders, actors and bespoke maps so guests can explore Malta’s more remote sites by land, air and sea”.
Norway
High-octane thrills in a majestic setting
“Norway is an untapped adventure playground with its maze of waterways and its remote western fjords. We like to combine adventures on the water with some thrilling land-based experiences in the company of world-leading experts. We’ve had guests witness a base jump flyby from one of the world’s best daredevil base jumpers, before arriving at an epic private celebration in one of the world’s most dramatic fjords. Guests have studied the Northern Lights with a top astrophysicist, learned survival skills from ex-Norwegian Naval Special Forces guides and enjoyed special gourmet indulgence with a top foraging chef at a restaurant on the edge of the world”.
Papua New Guinea
Tribal traditions & mapping shipwrecks by submersible
“Papua New Guinea is a fascinating destination to discover by explorer yacht, with plenty of potential to still make world-first discoveries by submersibles in sites never dived to by humankind before. These crystal-clear waters are surrounded by sunken planes and shipwrecks from intense action seen in the region over both World Wars. The coast of New Guinea and the island of New Britain also form part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the most seismically active regions on the planet. The deep ravines, reef walls, columns and pinnacles are an underwater dream for explorers. Using helis, we can take guests to explore some of the largest river caves on the planet and to witness some of the most mesmerizing rituals and traditions still in existence today by the local tribes”.
www.cooksonadventures.com / @cooksonadventures
Main image courtesy of SuRi
All other images courtesy of Cookson Adventures
