About Us

Every point connected.

Why travel with Icosa

Our People

We keep our groups small and intimate. Most people arrive on their own and leave with a crew. It is why so many come back, expedition after expedition.

Our Places

We go where the ocean still has something to show us, and something at stake. These are places where the story is still being written, from thriving reefs to ones fighting to recover.

Expedition boat off Malapascua Island, Philippines

Our Way

We plan every expedition in detail, then build in the room to change it. Flexibility isn't a fallback for when the plan fails. It's how we find the moments a fixed itinerary would miss.

School of mobula rays in Baja California

Our Impact

We turn witnesses into advocates. We put expedition dollars behind local operators who protect these waters. And we build every trip around travel that restores more than it consumes.

Safety

We will always do our best to find what you came for. But we will never sell an encounter as a guarantee and we will never risk harming an ecosystem in order to get it. Safety comes first. Yours, the animals, and the ecosystems we have the privilege to explore. Marine tourism has grown fast in the places we go, and we have watched operators chase and crowd animals to deliver an encounter. We observe, and we do not push.

The Team

Matthew David Kaplan

Founder & Expedition Leader

Matthew David Kaplan is an ocean filmmaker, dive expedition leader, conservationist, and social entrepreneur dedicated to sharing the magical underwater world with a global audience. His work, featured on Discovery, BBC Earth, and Ocean Culture Life, captures both the beauty of the ocean and the forces driving its collapse, with a focus on coral reef decline, overfishing, and the weak enforcement of protected areas.

A member of the Sea Shepherd crew and Scubapro Global Dive Team, Matthew has spoken at international forums including COP29 in Baku, and in 2026 launched a long term project in Indonesia to help build genuinely protected marine areas. He is based between New York and Indonesia.

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Audrey Cox

Partner & Expedition Leader

Audrey Cox is a conservation photographer, PADI dive instructor, and environmental economist documenting the ocean's beauty and fragility. She has spent more than four years in the dive industry as a divemaster, photo guide, and instructor, with marine conservation fieldwork in California, South Africa, and Madagascar.

Her path runs from research to advocacy: a former socioeconomics researcher with NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and a published academic author, she now tells the ocean's story through her lens. Her work has been featured on Discovery and by Ocean Conservancy, and was a finalist in The Nature Conservancy's Global Photo Contest. She is based in California.

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From our travelers

Carolina P.

Aruba · 4 trips

"It all started in 2023 when I left dry land in Texas to join Matthew's 20+ dive marine biodiversity dive expedition in Bonaire, even though I wasn't even certified yet. That trip combined my love for ocean conservation and underwater photography, leading me to then dive Baja Cali...

Collin (@OceansCollin)

United States · 5 trips

"Having attended 5 expeditions with Matthew across the world I can guarantee you will not be disappointed. Every expedition is filled with energy and adventure. Matthew makes sure you experience the best possible dive sites at each location to give you the best chance to see marin...

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Our Partners

STINAPA Bonaire National Parks Foundation

The Name

Icosa takes its name from the icosahedron, one of Plato's five perfect solids. In the Timaeus, Plato matched each solid to an element. The icosahedron, with its rounded, fluid form, became the shape of water itself. The element that moves, adapts, and never holds still.

It is also the geometry of the geodesic globe: one structure, repeated, forming a single connected surface. One planet. One ocean. Twelve points, thirty edges, one whole.

Every point connected.

Come explore with us.

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