Inspired by the legacy of his grandfather Jacques Cousteau, Philippe Cousteau and his wife Ashlan return for season 2 of their popular Travel Channel series Caribbean Pirate Treasure. It follows the fun-loving and adorable couple as they journey through the Caribbean, diving into haunted mysteries while exploring pirate history, all while searching for lost treasure.
Each episode will explore a different exotic location and allow us to not only learn about the destination, but also the mystery behind some of the greatest shipwrecks in history. Assisted by local experts and historians the couple take us on nail-biting adventures deep in the water and on land exploring the unknown.
I had the chance to sit down with the couple in Los Angeles, to go behind the scenes of their dangerous adventures and their ultimate hunt for lost treasure.
How did you guys find these locations for your exploring?
Ashlan- “Thankfully we have an amazing production team in L.A. We want to try and tell stories that haven’t been told before, which is hard in this day and age with the Internet. It’s a lot of searching the internet for crazy stories and getting those people on the phone and listening to their stories looking for these little nuggets of history that nobody’s really explored or told yet.
We have a 9 person crew and always try to fit in two vehicles. I think it’s a good rule of thumb when you’re going off to explore, the more bodies you have and the more vehicles you have, the harder it is to get to some of these crazy places. One place we visited this season was down in Ecuador where there are real pirates still active in the area. We actually had to get an armed escort to take us out to Dead Mans Island.”
What is it like traveling and working together as a couple? How do you keep your sanity?
Ashlan- “Our first piece of advice for all new couples is to travel together first. Go on a trip and not necessarily a week away at the Ritz. Rough it a little bit and that’s when their true colors come out when you’re out of your comfort zone. And if you can travel well together, we both believe that you know will go through life well together. But when we’re on the road, we always make sure that we take a night for ourselves. On every location, we have a little date night where we don’t talk about work. And another good thing to do when you’re traveling with a spouse is to make sure you give that person a little space.”
What was the most disappointing experience you have had in your travels on the show?
Philippe- ”Our biggest disappointment when we travel has to do with the weather. There’s been some places that we’ve had really high hopes of seeing something or being able to get onto a shipwreck or a site. Key West was one location that was pretty disappointing because you’re dealing with the ocean. There’s a lot of variables and you could have a beautiful calm sunny day and then as soon as you get out on the water the visibility is only 6 inches.”
What is the most magical experience that you have had?
Ashlan- “We were invited to Peru by the Peruvian Navy. in the 1700′s they had a Pirate fighting naval ship and they went in and actually fought off the really bad pirates from the area. They were so excited because they had saved their coast and sadly something went terribly wrong in the gunpowder storage room and the whole ship blew up right off the dock. All of the men lost their lives and they still don’t exactly know what happened. So that was the whole reason we went to Peru, to try to help them uncover that mystery, talk about their history and honor all of those men that lost their lives defending their country. It was really special to be there with these proud members of the Navy who were so excited to honor their fallen brothers.”
Spending as much time as you do in the ocean, do you notice any effects of global warming on your adventures?
Philippe- “Definitely. I was in the Great Barrier Reef last year and I’ve been diving there for 20 years and the change in that place is devastating. The collapse of those coral reefs and ultimately the collapse of roughly 30 percent of the world’s coral reefs period today is something that should alarm everyone.”
Ashlan- “Even during filming the series when we were in Belize last year, we were on an island inhabited by three people and it was where the Mayans used to go to watch the sunrise from. The entire windward side of the island was bogged down with about three feet of solid plastic pollution. Also, the entire time we were diving in the Caribbean, we have been spotting fish that are only about six inches long and there is no fish left to see. Through overfishing and the coral dying, we are really on the front line of all of the changes that are affecting our oceans.”
Philippe- “The only exception would be in a place called the aquarium in Belize which is one of the few small places that are protected. Even those places, as well as different spots in the Caribbean like; Bonaire, Curacao, and Jamaica, are declining because of climate change and warming oceans.
I think there’s a lot of progress being made on the toxic waste issue, but that is just one of many. It’s hopeful because by reducing plastic waste we’re starting to look at how we utilize existing distribution networks in developing countries like in Africa that allow these communities to have access to recycling.
It’s very exciting when you see what’s happening in the northern Red Sea. It is essentially a coral time capsule because it has evolved over millennia to adapt to very warm water and has become very resilient. Scientists are looking into how we can look at the genetic makeup of those corals and if that could maybe influence other parts of the world.”
Tell me about the locations for this new season
Philippe- “In Ecuador Dead Man’s Island is a real-life pirate experience. It’s an issue when you’re trying to film a television show in remote and dangerous places.”
Ashlan- “In Key West, I got to wear more gold in that episode than I probably ever will in my life ever again.”
Philippe- “Yes. Be careful when you go to Key West, it could be an expensive trip. Key West is known for parties and parades and a good time bars and Hemingway, but just off the shore is billions upon billions of dollars worth of treasure. It boggles the mind what exists Just a few miles off the coast.”
Philippe- “In Puerto Rico, we were there in the context of the hurricane aftermath and that was difficult to see the amount of damage and suffering that’s still happening. That being said Puerto Rico was a gem of the Spanish empire, and the Spanish colonies in the new world are brimming with all sorts of history again. I think people think the area is just about rum and pina coladas and music. Puerto Rico is also so rich with history.”
Ashlan-”We were so impressed with the spirit of the people of Puerto Rico. And now it was really important for us to go there because right now one of the best things we can do for Puerto Rico is to go visit and take our take our tourism dollars and help those small businesses get up and running and back on their feet.”
Philippe-”Bermuda is one of the most remote inhabited places on earth. It is essentially a ship catching island, a wreck catcher because it was a crossroads for centuries of ships from the New and Old World.”
Ashlan-”In the South Florida episode it was a crazy experience and great storytelling and I walked away with a real piece of treasure.”
You guys actually found treasures on these explorations?
Ashlan- “I actually feel very bad for my husband because for some odd reason, maybe it’s a girl thing, but I think women are better at spotting things than men are. On the show, I think I end up finding most of the stuff.”
Philippe-”She’ll find canons and ingots, but I did find a piece of pottery.” (he laughs)
Give me your bucket list for a possible Season 3
Ashlan- “Cuba. Haiti. And we really need to get the Travel Channel to give us the go-ahead to go Mediterranean pirate treasure hunting next season.”
Philippe- “Maybe add West Africa to that because there are these incredible swashbuckling, brave people that would travel up through Bermuda during hurricane season to the Madeira Islands and to the Cape Verde islands and plunder all along the west coast of Africa. Some of them went around into the Indian ocean plundering Mughal empire ships back in the late 1600′s.”
Did you have a relationship with your grandfather?
Philippe- “Tragically my father died six months before I was born in an airplane accident doing repairs on the ski plane that they used on expeditions. But my grandfather lived until I was about 17, so I knew him quite well. We would see each other a few times a year and I have fond memories.
He loved toy train sets and I remember he would often take me to go buy a new little train car or train set that I collected over the years. As I got into my teens, being very French, he would let me take wine and teach me about wine because he was from Bordeaux. I learned a lot about wine from him and he was a magical human being.
One thing I remember and appreciate from him is we lived in Connecticut for many years, and we would go and visit him whenever he came to New York, he was always polite to his fans. Even though he was frustrated by the attention, he was always nice and polite to people.
He had an expression in French which translates into English as the ransom of glory. And I think he had little time for people that would complain about their fame because he said you know we do this to ourselves. I recognize that people care about what I do and that it gives me the opportunity to travel the world to try and make the world a better place and that people have a sense of ownership of that. And I have to accept that. And he was always gracious and polite to everybody.
I grew up watching my fathers films and his books. Of course, the work of my grandfather is so great, but my grandmother Simone was really the true spirit of their research ship Calypso and spent more time on the ship than my grandfather. They shared so many adventures together. My mother Jan also spent 13 years with my father on expedition traveling around the world. For me to be able to do that now with my wife and having the opportunity to experience adventures together is another continuation of that legacy.”
How do you think your father would feel watching your series?
Philippe- “My father loved the high adventure of mysteries as much of the next guy. He and my grandfather were very much kids at heart, and I think he would be totally into it. You know people think of my father and grandfather as these conservation icons, but they went looking for Atlantis. My grandfather pioneered underwater archaeology in the Mediterranean looking for sunken ships from the Greek and Roman empires. They love this mystery and pirate lore and stories as much as anyone. I know they would enjoy the show.”
Ashlan-”I think they would be really impressed by the underwater photography and how far its come.”
Philippe- “Oh my goodness, the stories I grew up with about the cameras they used with no viewfinder and no focus. You would close the camera into a box, bring it underwater and point it at stuff. During the really early days when my father was still young, they were in the Red Sea filming and would just film and film for a couple of weeks, and then they would ship all of that footage back to Marseilles. They would watch it to see what they had and then they would send a telegram back to Calypso in The Red Sea and say it was all of that was out of focus and to start over. They would then spend another month filming a bunch of stuff trying to get footage underwater that they needed. It’s incredible that now we have 4k on our phones. I know they would have been blown away by the technology we have now.”
I am sure they would also be blown away by the discoveries of the deep.
Philippe- “I’ve talked to a couple Navy guys that have worked on deep sonar and deep sea projects and they said they heard stuff down there that is bigger than a sperm whale, bigger than any giant squid they had ever seen. We don’t know what it is because it’s just sound but there are some really big things down there that we’re pretty convinced nobody has ever seen before. And that’s not hard to believe since you know we have only sent three people to the bottom of the ocean. There is maybe a few thousand hours exploring an area that covers 70 percent of our planet. We’ve barely scratched the surface.
It’s particularly frustrating that we spend an inordinate amount of money exploring space as opposed to what we spend on protecting the ocean. Knowing whether there was ever water on Mars is the most fanciful exploit. When you consider that water is disappearing on this planet and the various systems that keep people alive, we still know very little how they work and we’re spending thousands of times more money trying to send a probe to Mars. I think it is complete nonsense. Our survival and our future matters on this planet and not in outer space.”
Philippe and Ashlan Cousteau return for Season 2 of their series Caribbean Pirate Treasure, premiering on Wednesday, June 13 on Travel Channel.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
