MEET YOUR EXPEDITION LEADER

Yago Doson, Marine Biologist and Fisheries Scientist, Founder of Monkeys of the Sea. Picture taken in 2012 in Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica, while working as a Marine Biologist onboard the SY Star Flyer.

I’m Yago, the person behind Monkeys of the Sea.

Long before this became a project, the ocean was already the center of my life. It is where I feel the most present and connected. Being in the water has always felt more like home than anywhere else.

After finishing my biology degree I did what made complete sense to me and absolutely no sense to anyone else. I became a divemaster and went to work on luxury liveaboards in Southeast Asia: the Similan Islands in Thailand, the Mergui Archipelago in Myanmar, the Andaman Islands in India. From there to Central America and the Caribbean: Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, the British Virgin Islands, Saint Maarten, Curaçao, Saint Barths.

I loved it.

I loved showing people things that made their jaws drop underwater.

But I was living in close quarters, suppressing who I was, slowly going back into a closet I had just escaped.

Yago Doson, Marine Biologist and Fisheries Scientist, Founder of Monkeys of the Sea. Picture taken in 2012 in Panama, while working as a Marine Biologist onboard the SY Star Flyer.
Yago Doson, Marine Biologist and Fisheries Scientist, Founder of Monkeys of the Sea. Picture taken in 2016 in Cabo Pulmo, Sea of Cortez, Baja California Sur.
Yago Doson, Marine Biologist and Fisheries Scientist, Founder of Monkeys of the Sea. Picture taken in 2012 in Costa Rica, while working as a Marine Biologist onboard the SY Star Flyer.
Yago Doson, Marine Biologist and Fisheries Scientist, Founder of Monkeys of the Sea. Picture taken in 2010 in the Andaman Islands, India, while working as a DiveMaster onboard the SY Siren.
Yago Doson, Marine Biologist and Fisheries Scientist, Founder of Monkeys of the Sea. Picture taken in 2012 in Puerto Costa Rica, while working as a Marine Biologist onboard the SY Star Flyer.
Yago Doson, Marine Biologist and Fisheries Scientist, Founder of Monkeys of the Sea. Picture taken in 2023 in El Sargento, Baja California Sur, with his beloved dog Relampago.

When you join an expedition with me you are not buying a tour. You are getting someone with deep scientific knowledge and real professional experience in the water, leading a small group of people who share openness, no judgement, and no performance. Just curious, authentic people exploring some of the most extraordinary seas together. That combination of adventure, knowledge, and genuine community is what I have been building towards.

If that is what you are looking for, come join me.

I moved to Vancouver in 2011, got my Master's in Fisheries Science, and spent years doing the kind of work that looks good on paper.

In 2016 I landed in Baja California Sur and built a life here. I worked in marine conservation, ocean policy, and fisheries management. I published research. I did the work I had trained for. And the Sea of Cortez, one of the most biodiverse bodies of water on earth, was right outside my door the whole time.

Monkeys of the Sea is the culmination of all of it. The liveaboard years. The science. The conservation work. The thousands of dives in some of the most remote and extraordinary places on earth. I am taking everything I have built and doing exactly what I want with it, on my own terms, as exactly who I am.