Sixteen is a lot of African safaris. That’s how many Francesco Galli Zugaro has done, in addition to countless cruises to islands and tours of destinations on mainlands all around the world. As he wrote in The New York Times back in 2006, he’s basically a professional vacationer, fulfilling his own desire to have amazing experiences while checking out the competition for his company, Aqua Expeditions. “People who expect the world when they go on vacation—and who pay for that privilege—tend to get a ‘been there, done that’ attitude about certain destinations,” he wrote nearly two decades ago. His personal experience has taught him that this attitude persists when it comes to yacht charter, which is largely based in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.

That’s why he’s always looking for new regions to base one of his fleet vessels. And now he has found one.

“Finally, I was able to get down to Aldabra, which is the gateway to the Seychelles,” he says. “It’s a group of islands in the Outer Islands of the Seychelles. It’s the second-largest coral atoll in the world. It’s got over 150,000 giant tortoises in an uninhabited island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. That’s 10 times the size of the population in the Galapagos.”

He felt that visiting this part of the world was an extraordinary experience, so much so that he was willing to invest the three years’ worth of time and effort it takes to base one of his fleet vessels there. Starting in late 2025, Aqua Expeditions will have itineraries available aboard a newly refitted 200-plus-foot vessel in not only the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, but also Zanzibar, Tanzania, on the eastern coast of Africa.

“This is beyond the inner group of islands, places like the iconic La Digue. It’s not easy to get to,” he says. “I got there and discovered an opportunity to do something. Zanzibar is known as a spice island of East Africa, so I thought, why not create this opportunity for guests? We have about 38,000 guests who have traveled with Aqua. They’ve done all these places. This is something new.”

Zanzibar is virtually unheard of as a destination for luxury charters. Some international-caliber yachts do visit the Seychelles but typically cruise near La Digue and the Inner Islands. The region where Aqua Expeditions will operate is farther afield, in a location where it would be challenging for an individual yacht making a temporary visit to arrange a one-off charter booking, let alone be ready with access to protected excursion sites and knowledgeable guides.

“There are some small three- or four-cabin catamarans that you can charter out of the Seychelles, but nothing that is this class,” he says. “There’s nothing at the high end of expedition cruising, either by charter or by-the-cabin, that’s scheduled in a way that is sellable and bookable.”

As with all of its vessels, Aqua Expeditions will offer charters here by-the-cabin or full-vessel, with the latter being how traditional charter yachts are booked. About 30 percent of the company’s business is full-vessel bookings, Zugaro says, and about 60 percent of the clients come from the United States.

“The Seychelles and East Africa have been slightly more of a European destination,” he says. “We have past guests from America who may do the Maldives or Caribbean, but they don’t do the Seychelles. I think the Seychelles beats the Maldives with the tropical setting and natural component. There’s a wow factor of the natural beauty.”

Setting up shop in parts of the world that have this kind of a wow factor for well-traveled clients isn’t easy. Aqua Expeditions, which Zugaro founded in 2007, now has experience delivering on the promise in the Peruvian Amazon, the Galapagos Islands, Vietnam and Cambodia, and Indonesia. Guests can expect the same level of luxury and service in this new region, Zugaro says, despite its lack of traditional yachting infrastructure.

“The less infrastructure, for me, the better,” he says. “Our ships don’t go alongside a big marina. These are expeditions. You want the ship to have autonomy. We do that in the Galapagos with two-week itineraries. The same thing goes here.”

Also, in this part of the world, he says, a key element is the quality of the guides. There are 27 guides working for Aqua Expeditions, providing expertise in ways that work for even the most well-traveled clients.

“We have one guide for every four couples on our trips,” he says. “This means the trip can be more customized, if they are more snorkelers or birdwatchers or whatever they like.”

The new vessel will offer about four activities a day with some structured timing to address challenges, such as entering and exiting lagoons at the proper heights of tidal shifts, he says. This is different from a charter where guests can simply decide where they might want the yacht to go the next morning, but a schedule is necessary when you’re talking about experiences that are a world away from shopping on St. Barts or sipping cocktails off St. Tropez.

“When you push the guests a little bit out of their comfort zone, that’s when they have the real wow moments, and that’s what we do,” Zugaro says. “They have to have some faith in the guides and the activities that we’ve put together for them to experience the best of the destination. They’re not there to lounge about and sunbathe. They can do that in the Med anytime they want. Here, the setting lends itself to going out and being active, and coming back to a beautiful ship.”  

Get Ready to Book

The 15-stateroom, 200-plus-foot vessel Aqua Expeditions plans to introduce in this region next year will be the sixth vessel in the company’s global fleet. More details about the new addition are expected to become available in a month or so, with bookings opening soon and charter operations beginning at the end of November 2025.

Aldabra

Aldabra, in the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, is the world’s second-largest coral atoll. The land tortoises that roam here can grow to 550 pounds and live for 150 years. The presence of so many tortoises is why people call this island “the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean.”

Cosmoledo

Also in the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, Cosmoledo has become known as a bucket-list destination for saltwater fly-fishing. Anglers who wet a line here often go for giant trevally, but they can also encounter a wide diversity of bonefish, milkfish, permit and various species of triggerfish.

Kilwa Kisiwani

This hamlet in Tanzania has fewer than 1,000 residents. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where cultural tourism is regulated to protect the integrity of the artifacts. The Great Mosque here dates back to the 12th century. The Husuni Kubwa, or “great palace,” dates to the early 14th century.

Stone Town

Stone Town is the capital of the Zanzibar archipelago. For generations, it was a main trading post on the spice, silk and slave routes. African, Arabian, European and Indian cultures are all represented here, with walkable streets and alleyways that feel like a labyrinth.

Pemba

Part of the Zanzibar archipelago, Pemba is known for snorkeling and diving on coral reefs, and for birdwatching ashore. Pemba is also the world’s primary exporter of the clove spice, with millions of clove trees that can grow to 50 feet in height. That’s the origin of Pemba’s nickname, “Clove Island.”

Farquhar

Farquhar is an atoll within the Farquhar island group in the Outer Islands of the Seychelles. It’s named for British merchant Robert Townsend Farquhar, who worked for the East India Company as well as the British government during the early 19th century. 

Mahé

Mahé is the largest island in the Seychelles, and will serve as a primary pickup and drop-off point for Aqua Expeditions charter clients. Airlines that operate here include Air France, Emirates, Qatar and Turkish Airlines. From the New York City region, a one-stop flight takes at least 18 hours.

East Africa

Tanzania, where Aqua Expeditions is scheduling charters, is more than 1,000 miles south of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. “The concern about pirates is way, way north of where we’re operating,” says founder and CEO Francesco Galli Zugaro. “Tanzania is not the concern. That’s where we are operating.”

Aldabra Giant Tortoise

The Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean are known for their population of giant tortoises, which number around 20,000. On Aldabra in the Indian Ocean, the number is closer to 150,000. This is the world’s largest population of the species. Historically, the Indian Ocean region was home to 18 or more varieties of tortoise, but only this species remains because of sailors who hunted them and introduced rats, cats and pigs that ate their hatchlings and eggs.

Take the next step: aquaexpeditions.com

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Under the cloak of fog, the 50-foot sailing vessel Atea made a break for it. Owners John Daubeny, Kia Koropp and their children, Braca and Ayla, had been on a pandemic lockdown in a South Africa marina for two months. Their plan to island-hop from St. Helena to Ascension to Cape Verde en route to Europe had fallen apart as those ports slammed shut along with ports worldwide.

But there were signs in summer 2020 that Europe was opening to cruisers. Rather than linger in uncertainty in wintry South Africa, the foursome set sail that June on a nearly 6,000-mile direct transit to Europe, navigating pandemic restrictions while exploring destinations in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres.

Since purchasing Atea in 2011, this New Zealand-based family has embodied the yacht’s Maori name, which means “unencumbered and free.” It’s a philosophy both parents have long embraced. In 1993, at age 25, Daubeny, a British national, embarked on a four-year circumnavigation in a 27-foot sloop. Koropp, a Puerto Rico-born American expat, backpacked through Africa and the South Pacific for four years before sailing in 2006 from Seattle to New Zealand.

Braca, 9, and Ayla, 7, have grown up aboard the cutter-rigged Ganley Solution. They visited such locales as Malaysia, Madagascar and the Maldives before the age most children take their first school field trip.

In November 2018, the family sailed to South Africa and stored Atea in Saldanha Bay, around 90 miles north of Cape Town. They returned in early 2020 to repair and provision Atea before their March departure on their Atlantic itinerary—then the pandemic erupted. Koropp was visiting a wine distributorship just as news broke of an impending ban on alcohol sales. She bought 100 bottles of wine, tripling their onboard inventory. “We stowed it in the bilge, under the beds and settees, and in a few scattered lockers around the boat,” she says.

Their friends told them that being on a boat was the best place to be during the pandemic. “You can go anywhere,” they said. But to Koropp, the reality was more complicated: “If you don’t have a country that is going to let you in, you’re not going to float around in the mid-Atlantic with no purpose.”

They did have a purpose: reach Europe. And the steel-hulled Atea was capable of a direct transit. Its previous owner had outfitted it for offshore cruising, with four battery banks, as well as dual fuel filters and water pumps. It carries 225 gallons of fuel and 370 gallons of fresh water.

However, Atea’s rudder, rigging and engine had just undergone significant repairs. “None of them had been tested,” Daubeny says.

It was a risk they were willing to accept. With their traditional parting cheer of “Land go!” the family waved goodbye to the African mainland on June 4, 2020, and started their Atlantic voyage.

“We decided at the start we wouldn’t count the days,” Daubeny says. “Instead, we celebrated each thousand-mile passage.”

The kids had slime baths and a fake-snow fight. They enjoyed the sun and a swim during the doldrums. Save for four rough days in the Northeast trades, battling wind on the nose, it was great sailing.

“Some people hate passage,” Koropp says. “We feel like we finally get to relax. Our family gets into a routine. We play games together. It’s the opposite of when we’re onshore because then you’re doing as much as you can.”

They quickly switched into go mode upon reaching the Azores on day 52. “The Azores was well-set-up by the time we got there,” Koropp says. “They emailed us asking, ‘Can we do anything for you on arrival?’ They delivered french fries, shakes and hamburgers for the kids.”

After a negative COVID-19 test, the family was free to explore the archipelago. They clambered over the volcanic landscapes of Pico and Faial. On Terceira, they attended a bullfight. A month later, they moved on to Portugal. “We could just walk into the best wineries in the Duoro Valley because there were no tourists around,” Koropp says.

By October 2020, however, the situation was changing. “We could see Europe was struggling with the second wave of the pandemic,” Daubeny says. “More restrictions were being put in place. It cemented for us that it was time to move, to head south toward the Canaries.”

They’d intended to progress to the Caribbean from the Canaries, but an intriguing conversation with another cruiser sent them on a 1,000-mile detour to Gambia, West Africa. They sailed 156 miles up the Gambia River to Misang Island, through River Gambia National Park. “Hippos were around the boat,” Koropp recalls. “Crocodiles came into the water. You could hear chimpanzees howling in the trees at sunset.”

Few yachts venture into this area, so the English-speaking locals greeted Atea with great excitement. “The Gambians are incredibly warm, hospitable and inclusive,” Koropp says. The family was invited to a child’s naming ceremony, for which a local tailor made them bespoke traditional outfits.

In February, Atea rocked the trade winds across the Atlantic to Antigua, covering 2,700 miles in 19 days. “This is the best year ever for being in an island group in the Caribbean,” Daubeny says. “It is difficult and expensive to go through the pandemic regulations and move from one island group to another, but once you’re here, it’s fantastic. Everything is open. It’s really uncrowded. It’s glorious. “

On St. Martin, they reveled in the happy-hour party scene. On Barbuda, they kitesurfed by day and enjoyed beach bonfires by night.

Daubeny and Koropp credit their decade of cruising life for giving them confidence to embark on their epic voyage. “You have to be flexible and not afraid of the unknown,” Koropp says. “We’ve had a great year. We made a good decision and have been able to cruise in this very difficult year. You just need to be comfortable with not knowing what comes next.”

Captain’s Log

Cape Town to Azores: 52 days, 5,888 nautical miles; Azores to Portugal: 7 days, 969 nm; Portugal to Canaries: 6 days, 557 nm; Canaries to Gambia: 9 days, 993 nm; Gambia to Antigua: 19 days, 2,734 nm; Total from March 2020 to March 2021: 12,428 nm

What Came Next

The tranquility of the family’s Caribbean anchorage at Bequia was shattered with the eruption of the La Soufrière volcano on the neighboring island of St. Vincent on April 9. “The next morning, it was obvious we had to move [because] the air was thick with ash. So we sailed as far as we could to get clear air,” Koropp says. They joined a convoy of about a dozen boats that sheltered in the Tobago Cays. After three days, the wind shifted, the air cleared, and the cruisers emerged to toast with sundowners on the beach.

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Humpbacks breach the satin-smooth sea past the Cape of Good Hope. Then the whole scene changes dramatically. The high-rises of Cape Town pierce the view. Breakwaters, wharves and container ships are all around us. Festive people shop feverishly and fill restaurants. We tie up 94-foot Whale Song and take a road trip to where South African nature comes back to life. Baboons mob us on the way to Cape Point Nature Reserve, and then give way to ostriches. We notice African penguins claiming the beaches — and serving as a transition to our next cruising leg along Africa’s western coastline.

Back aboard Whale Song, the wind has whipped the sea into whitecaps and dark swells as we follow the sandy hills of Namibia and pass a diamond dredge sucking up riches from the continental shelf. Along the 250-mile route something comes over us like an invisible fog bank: the stink of a bird rookery. Then comes belching, meowing and roaring — a colony of Cape fur seals in full swing.

When we approach Walvis Bay, usually the best harbor on this Skeleton Coast, our next wild site is a pretty German beach resort, incongruous to Africa, with tourists tearing up and down a 1,250-foot dune.

We’re offered some advice before leaving Walvis Bay on a 1,600-mile jog to São Tomé and Príncipe, a two-island country 180 miles off the mainland.

“Namibia is the safest country on the continent,” a South African yachtsmen tells us, “but everything north lies outside the rim of the habitable world.”

Still, it’s a better alternative for our circumnavigation route than the risks off Africa’s east coast. When Whale Song crosses the equator at the south tip of São Tomé Island, the first thing we see in the dawn light are the sails of small fishing boats running offshore. In the background, green jungly mountains rise more than 6,000 feet above the island. We go ashore and find people too friendly for belief. That’s because the slaves for the sugar cultivation started by the Portuguese in the 15th century were taken from so many ethnic groups that their descendants have long forgotten the tribal hatreds that rip apart so much of Africa today.

This side of the continent has its plague of pirates, particularly in the Gulf of Guinea near the Nigeria coast. It’s a disturbing pursuit, but it’s also time-honored because Britain’s Sir Francis Drake began his career by robbing the Portuguese slave robbers. We have no desire to make history, so Whale Song steams far offshore toward Africa’s western bulge. Our bet is on the Gambia River as our gateway into the dark heart of real Africa.

Sure enough, a strange man boards our yacht. We’re in Banjul, the port town at the mouth of the Gambia River. The man says his name is Sharif. He isn’t a pirate. He’s a pilot. He will help with navigation. But he’ll assist with much more than that.

When we anchor near James Island, Sharif tells us this was once a slave entrepôt, now a mere knob of old stone ruins and baobab trees.

“It inspired Alex Haley to write Roots,” he says, which is why it is also known as Kunta Kinteh Island.

About 155 miles upriver a low power line stops our progress, so Sharif arranges a ride by land for us to Wasu, where he says we need to see the 1,200-year-old stone circles.

This could be trouble. The shuttle van that is supposed to take us to Wasu is composed of bare steel and broken seats, held together mostly by random wire and tape. Fortunately, it gets us all the way to this miniature African Stonehenge for a long look around and then delivers us back to Whale Song.

Unlike the van, we are in one piece.

Sharif then negotiates our visit to Kudang, a village of Fula people who use baobab trees medicinally, carve canoes for fishing and obviously make a lot of kids. Villagers smile at us from their thatch huts. Teenage boys look up from their wooden writing tablets. At the sight of red Colobus monkeys, Sharif blurts out, “Very tasty.”

We leave Sharif and the river area to continue cruising up the coast, and we know our next stop might not be so friendly. For the first time in a long while, we feel tension. We are entering Dakar, Senegal, to fuel. Here, we need 24-hour watchmen. One, a bright-eyed, middle-age man lightens the mood when he asks my wife’s name. “Oh, like Nancy Pelosi,” he says. “I love American politics.”

Still, it’s a relief to leave Dakar safely and power north, the swell on our nose growing larger with the northeast wind often hitting 20 knots.

Then, an awesome sight: The Canary Islands emerge from the haze, with snow patches glowing on Tenerife’s 12,000-foot Mount Teide. During an excursion to the center of Fuerteventura Island, we stumble into a colonial 17th-century church, a jewel inside and outside. Not far away, the ocean surf roars onto the wild shore. It’s actually nice to have our feet on the ground, for just a little while.

There will be no riveting theater for our leg to Gibraltar. A shallow low settles over the Canaries and gentle westerlies sigh over Whale Song — we could cover the final 780 miles in a small sailboat. The only drama is saved for the moment when “The Rock” roars through a low haze, ushering us out of the Atlantic and into the Med. We have experienced Africa like few people ever will. This slice of life is very good.

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