Project Calypso

On the 19th of June 2022, Natasja passed her PADI instructor exam!!!!! 👌 Congratulations for such great achivement and for reaching an important milestone of our Calypso project! We are now officaly a couple of PADI DScuba Diving Instructors and looking forward to dedicate our lifes to make a difference in people by let them discover their inner adventure and the ocean beauty. As for evert PADI Scuba Diver Instructor, the exam weekend is a challengin and emotional intense moment of our life which we will remember forever. 

Sint Maarten is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherland located on the south of a Caribbean Island shared with France. The Dutch territory covers the 40% of the island where lives little more than 40,000 people. The island was divided by the Treaty of Condordia in 1648 and despite the border changed sixteen times due to fights, the sharing is still in place till today. Cotton, tobacco and sugar plantation had been the main island income till after the WWII, when in the 50s the iconic International Airport was opened and the tourism business took off. Today the island economy is based on tourism, employing 80% of the population. Cruise ships and luxurious hotel resorts are the main type of tourism sources. The island location is exposed to the hurricanes season and it has been hit more then ones with the last in 2017 causing extensive damages to 70% of the houses and loss of lives. The real estate opportunities are almost exclusively top high end villas and th

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is the island country of the Lesser Antilles laying between Saint Lucia on the North and Grenada on the South. The territory is composed by the main island of Saint Vincent with the capital Kingstown and a chain of 32 smaller islands many of which are inhabitated by a total population of 110,000 people. After an intial period when the islands were under French control, they has been maintly a British colony till the 1979 when they gained full indipendency. Nowadays Saint Vincent is a parlamentary democarcy and a constututional monarchy with Elizabeth II as Queen. Since its indipendance, the state had political stability without any major issues. Saint Vincent is a volcanic island with moist forest while southern islands has dryer forest ecosystems. In April 2021 the main volcano La Soufriere erupted, 16,000 people had to be evaquated and ashes covered part of the island. Climate is the typical tropical one, hot and humid with dry season from December to

Haiti shears Hispaniola island with the Dominican Republic but unfortunately it didn't share the same fate. In fact, the history of Haiti has been particularly troubled in many ways. Since its independence, Haiti went through several authoritarian regimes including 20 years of  American occupation. Till today, the political unrest is a constant of the country history. In addition to the political instability, Haiti has been signed by continues  natural catastrophes such as hurricanes and earthquakes devastating the land, the economy and the life of Haitians. As result, today Haiti has a underdeveloped economy, social unrest and an uncertain future. The tourism industry may be one of the best option for the country development but at the moment very little has been done about it. Hopefully Haiti will be able to gain stability, to grow an healthy economy and to have a florid tourism industry but it will take several years. All the present criticalities and the uncertainties for the f

Officially "Commonwealth of ", Dominica is an island country of the Windwards island in the Lesser Antilles archipelago. Independent republic since 1978, the island has a past of French first and British later colony.  Main activity is cultivation and export of bananas, the economy is not well developed resulting in low GDP, one of the lowest in the Caribbean. The island natural environment is well preserved and in the recent years its rain forests, hot springs, waterfall and underwater life started to become attractive and the ecotourism has been growing while the absence of typical tropical beaches has kept traditional tourism low. Unfortunately the island is often hit by hurricanes which in the latest years have been increasing in frequency and force causing massive damages to the island with loss of human lives and destruction of infrastructures and economy. As positive consequence the Government is now determined to make Dominica the first "hurricanes proof" co

Barbados is an independent island Country of 432 sq Km in the Lesser Antilles with a population of less than 300,000 people, part of the Commonwealth.  Independent since 1966, Barbados is expected to remove the Queen and to become a republic  by November 2021. The capital of this former British colony is Bridgetown. The economy is mixed and well developed. Historically, the local economy was based on sugar cane cultivation but gradually tourism and finance became the main drivers. In the recent years, Barbados attracted an average of 1,2M tourists equally divided between cruises and stayovers. Almost 90% of the tourists came from UK and North America, very few from Europe and almost exclusively from Germany. Due to hurricanes season, the tourism peaks between December and April and in July. Stayovers accommodation is mainly in hotels and resort even though the offer of houses and apartment is growing. The prices of real estate properties are middle-high but it seems possibl

Aruba is an arid and relatively small (30Km x 8Km) island and a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Southern Caribbean Sea. The planned full independence were never reached and actually rescinded in 1995. Together with Bonaire and Curacao forms a group of islands called ABC Islands and they are part of Dutch Caribbean. Total population is estimated around 116.000, official languages are Dutch and Papamiento but English is widely spoken. Tourism and related activities counts for two thirds of the island gross national product. In the recent years, Aruba had around 1,000,000 stay-over tourists, 75% of which coming from North America and around 10% form Europe. The Cruise tourism brings more 800.000 passengers visiting the island. From a real estate point of view, there is a good availability of houses with value for money. The tourism is more hotel oriented than rental houses but there are opportunities especially with reference to European tourists.

Making selections is always difficult but unavoidable. We have decided to limit our selection only at independent Caribbean States and Dutch territories. In principle, we excluded French territories because we prefer to not study another language while US and UK territory due to immigration policies which would make difficult to obtain our residence permit. As result, we have to choose between the following: Antigua and Barbuda Aruba The Bahamas Barbados Bonaire Curacao Dominica Dominican Republic Grenada Haiti Jamaica Saba Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Granadines Sint Eustatius Sint Maarten Trinidad and Tobago Starting in alphabetic order, we are going to study all those Caribbean States. We will look at the geography, the climate, the diving peculiarities, the government, the immigration policies, the environment polices, the tourism business characteristics and the real estate market. At the end, we will see how many of this 18 destination have the potentia

The duration of the project will be quite long, for someone maybe too long but it is a massive life change which has to be planned without being in a rush. In addition to this, we also want  our 12 years old daughter to built whatever future she wants and a Caribbean island may not offer what she shall want so we shall wait until she will decide about her life This will also give us time to finance the project by our self since we believe that sustainability means also financial independence. We have now started with the shortlisting of destinations which will take some months. Hopefully, pandemic and economic crisis permitting, next year we will begin to spend our holidays in the shortlisted islands to experience how would be living there and to find their strengths and weaknesses. Those research holidays will take some years but we don't mind. Once the island will be finally chosen, we will need to find a place to live and a place to accommodate tourist guests and this may also t

While working on the project, we did a nice family dive at Zoetersbout, here in the Netherlands. Weather was fantastic, great water temperature and we saw plenty of juvenile lobsters, wonderful. Once back from the dive, to help staying focused on our project we enjoyed a nice Caribbean Breeze!!! We used the following very much recommended recipe: 1 part of dark room Banks 7 Golden Age 1/2 part of Bacardi Coconut Rum 4 parts of pineapple juice 4 parts of cranberry juice

But which island? Well...now that we have decided to change life and the place of the world to go, we actually are just at the beginning. We have plenty of jobs to do before we can start seeing the end of this project. As first, we need to select the actual island within The Caribbean where we shall live. Actually Caribbean means 35 countries and territories in an archipelago with more than 7,000 islands… ...but if you are not ready to "donate" or invest figures with 5 or 6 zeros, it is virtually impossible to obtain a long term residence permit or citizenship in most of the Caribbean countries. Beside the Dutch Caribbean islands, (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius), where, since Natasja is Dutch, we should obtain the permits without too many problems, we want to discover which other islands may be an interesting opportunity for us. So in the next weeks, actually most probably months, we will be working on a shortlist of our potential future residen

Ok... now that we took the decision to change our life, we had to choose where. Luckily we traveled a lot for pleasure and for business and we saw quite a significant portion of our planet, from East to West, from North to South. There is one main factor leading the choice, the weather! Gray and cold days for weeks in a row are banned which means limiting the search area to the tropics. Excluding Africa and South America due to risk of instability, three possibilities remain: Far East Asia Pacific Islands of Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia The Caribbean Pacific Islands are not a real option for us since besides luxury resorts there are not many sustainable opportunities for long term stay. So quickly we ended up with two options, Far East Asia or The Caribbean. Both are wonderful places, perfect for diving with good opportunities for long stays. I lived in Far East Asia between Jakarta and Singapore for a few years and there are fantastic locations in the area but the language and

Before we proceed further in developing the project, maybe we should tell something more about us and how we arrived here. We are in the middle of our forties and our wonderful daughter is just starting her middle school, our present hometown is Rotterdam in the Netherlands. I am Giuseppe, better known as Beppe, an Italian engineer married to Natasja a Dutch Logistic Manager and we both work for the same company in the oil & gas business. Scuba diving is the family passion. I am a PADI Open Water Instructor, Natasja is also a PADI Open Water Instructor and our daughter is a PADI Junior Master Scuba Diver. We dive all year around basically everywhere possible, including cold and low visibility waters because it is being underwater what really matters. In the last 20 years, our working commitment has been very intense and in particular I have been travelling around the globe almost constantly like a real globetrotter. Our job provided us the means to enjoy life by great holidays, top

Choosing the project name has been extremely easy, for sure no other choice in the all project will ever be as easy. Calypso was a nymph in Greek mythology who kept Odysseus prisoner for seven years on the island of Ogygia, in Homer's Odyssey. For any passionate scuba diver and every ocean lover, the name is also somehow mythological but for a different reason. Calypso  was the research ship of Jacques Cousteau, the famous scuba diving pioneer, marine conservationist and great documentarian. Cousteau legacy started in 1973 continue still today Foundation . John Denver, after being on board Calypso in Belize, dedicated a song with a wonderful lyric. And talking about music, Calypso is actually also the name of the typical Caribbean music developed in Trinidad during the 17th century which spread all over the islands becoming very popular and being nowadays one of the icons of Caribbean life together with the carnival. For sure, there will be more posts about Calypso music to get i

We all have our own dreams and most of them remain what they are. We need dreams because they provide us hopes, motivation and sometimes comfort. No, this blog is not about a dream.  It is about a project, our project. Because the project resembles one of the most common and obvious dreams, someone may think a dream was how this all began. In reality the project origin is very much more rational. We have reached the middle of our life and have realized that we are ready for a different one. Our life is great but somehow its meaning is ending, we have changed, the world has changed and so our life has to change as well. Changing life for us doesn't mean better life, it simply means a different life. We are not in search of happiness because we already have it and in any case changing life would not make us happier. Actually, the aim is to live a simpler and more sustainable life, with human contact to transfer our passion. We are passionate about the ocean and its underwater world.