It is traditional to tip the crew on Cruise ships.
This time round, I tipped by leaving a note offering Sats, with information on how to install Wallet of Satoshi and redeem them by emailing me a photo of the note I left in the Cabin.
Let us see what happens.
I will be able to give an update in a few weeks time.
Most of the crew are ending their contracts within the next couple of weeks now the ship has repositioned to the Caribbean.
Once home, they should have time and Internet available to look into this more.
I did that with my cabin staff that I actually met, but this was for the other staff that I didn't get to speak to.
Without sounding posh, I gave my Cruise Butler a copy of my book and asked him if he preferred fiat or Sats. He asked for Sats, but he is not allowed to carry his personal Smart phone in public areas onboard, so I wrote him a note on how to redeem via WoS, which he will do when he goes home on the 22nd November.
Also I tipped at the value of Sats at the begging of the cruise, not at the end, so they will receive more if they redeem them than they would had they received fiat.
Also, from an American tipping culture perspective, they already receive the tip part of their salary which is built into the fare we pay.
This is a tip above the default tip.
So my review of the four Islands I visited to research nom nom / expat life in the Caribbean.
I had discounted St. Marteen and St Lucia before I went, purely because they have no specific advantages either Bitcoin or Tax related. My visit confirmed I don’t wish to live in either place.
St. Kitts & Nevis was a serious contender due to its tax laws and adoption of Bitcoin (albeit BCH).
After visiting, I am not totally discounting it, but it is not a front runner as you have to pay $300K for its citizenship by investment scheme. This is either in the form of a lump sum, or by purchasing an approved property. The property purchase route is not as it seems, you have very little choice and the property devalues by at least $300K after you’ve held it the minimum of 5 years (required by the investment scheme). So either way the fee is $300K, which you loose.
For this reason I have discounted St. Kitts, despite seeing some Bitcoin adoption.
So to Barbados.
Everything else aside, I liked this place, I would consider living here for its own merits. It has a lot of beauty and the poverty, of which there is much, is somehow more relaxed and less threatening.
For example, we were on a Beach having a few drinks when a very laid back man passed by hawking some Aloe vera leaves he had just cut down from a tree. He was offering them to the tourists to help with any sunburn.
However unlike touts I had observed on other Islands, he was very relaxed and didn’t hassle you at all. And if you didn’t want to buy the leaves, he gave them to you anyway if he thought you needed them. This made the tourists offer him money in gratitude, which is a much more intelligent way to earn a subsistence living. He was also very friendly with the restaurant staff who clearly helped him with the odd meal or even money sometimes.
The tax situation in Barbados is pretty good, no CGT, but there is income tax of around 28%. I don’t object to tax, I simply object to the misappropriation of tax income for vanity or woke projects.
I am now investigating the logistics of this with a non Bitcoin friend who is also looking to go non dom.
I’m considering it, primarily from the unlikely involvement in any WW3.
I haven’t visited anywhere there yet, it’s still early days and as CGT only went up to 24%, not the expected 39%, the pressure is off for the moment.
GM
My wife is really starting to believe this Bitcoin thing now NGU and ATHs are a daily occurrence 😂
I need to do some thinking about our future life and that of my family now I'm back from my research travels.
Time for some Bluesky thinking, even though I'm on NOSTR 😂
Here is a photo of some random clouds taken on our flight home to represent my thought processes.
Have a great day everyone.
https://i.nostr.build/vjqs0UoqLQyrCycH.jpg
I’ve been on a 45 minute crowded coach transfer to Barbados airport and about to get on an 8 hour flight to the UK
You wouldn’t want my perfume to stay with you right now 😂
GM
I was afraid I wouldn’t get the obligatory photo with the dancing girls as the main headliner theatre performers weren’t posing for photos.
But then last night, I ended up in a conga line with a Caribbean group
https://i.nostr.build/6xKXHjyT1iuaQIYV.jpg
GM,
Last day in Barbados, we fly home this afternoon.
As usual, I have advanced posted this via:
shipyard.pub/write
Probably lots of live posting in 7 - 8 hours.
Check back later for live reports.
Have a great day everyone.
Meanwhile, here is a photo of a dinner I went to at our neighbours hotel / restaurant / wine rooms in Ventnor:
https://www.theterraceventnor.co.uk/
I ended up sitting next to this gentleman, who it turns out designed the ship we've just spent two weeks on.
https://i.nostr.build/hla3B2HxEgQiFJvV.jpg
We were going here tonight, but the ship is not letting anybody right now due to the violent tropical storm currently underway
https://www.lobsteralive.net/ourmenu.php
So today was interesting. We decided not to join our fellow passengers in one of the many tours around the beautiful Island of St. Lucia, but instead walked into Castries, the local town.
What we saw was raw, ugly poverty and the reality of a third world economy. I hated almost every moment, trying to avoid touts and hustlers and the dirt and hostility of town life in the Caribbean.
This was very useful and clarified my thinking enormously.
It is possible to live in an ivory tower in places like this and many choose to do so, but I have always wanted to be part of any community that I live in, and I know I cannot be a part of this community.
Tomorrow at breakfast, in the restaurant reserved for suite guests, we will sit next to our neighbours once again and discuss the previous days activities.
They had booked a very expensive tour to a “drive in” volcano, a luxury natural mud treatment and a 5 star lunch.
We will be honest and explain the miserable day we endured.
However trying to explain to them that this is probably the most pivotal day for me and will define the direction of the rest of my families lives for generations to come will be much harder to explain.
So I will probably allow them to think they had a better day than us, which they did.
Now I’m back home I thought I would respond to this in more detail. I appreciate you are probably a bot or have created the npub just to make this one comment, but I find engaging with opposing views informative and helpful in curating my own philosophy and opinions.
I’m going to ignore the expletives, but that aside, you seem to not like the fact that I am successful and becoming more so, primarily due to the hard work, time and effort we have all put into studying Bitcoin.
Apart from the usual retort of HFSP, I’m not sure I understand this. Bitcoin is for anybody and yes it is not for everybody, but the fact that there is buried deep beneath this npub a human that initiated this, means you are more than capable of learning Bitcoin and NOSTR. Thus you will be stacking Sats and growing your wealth the same as I. I appreciate you may have a smaller stack or have stacked for less time, but that aside we are the same.
Therefore you must despise yourself, or perhaps despise the personal wealth you are creating. Aside from the initial work to understand Bitcoin, this requires no effort and so may be unpalatable to a working class ethos, but even so, it is a natural result of putting work into an area that even today, most people dismiss.
I am a narcissist in so much as I love and admire myself very much. That is the goal for most people and I have done so most of my life. If you don’t love yourself, then you should ask why not and try to correct that.
And yes, I am not middle class, I am very definitely upper class, not by breeding but by success. My father was poor and from a working class background. He became self made through natural talent, luck and hard work. He passed away recently, but you can still purchase both his books on Amazon under Cliff Clarifies by “Cliff Hardcastle OBE”
Lastly and most importantly, I am incredibly proud, not just of my father, but of myself. I have put in huge effort and pushed myself to places few seem capable of, or are interested in doing. I am no different to anybody else, except I am focused and find the work of learning and improving immensely rewarding. I also wish to see others improve themselves and am deciding how best to help.
I am considering philanthropic routes going forward, but have been disappointed at the results my efforts have made to date. I have tried giving money, but that never works, I have tried offering my time, but that is often unappreciated.
I am now trying to decide whether it is even possible to make a significant difference to the world within my lifetime. Your intended offensive post swings me further to the apathy side, but I am determined to find a way to allow the people that most need Bitcoin to be comfortable adopting it. Going forward I am going to make a lot of mistakes and take many failed paths, but I hope to find a way to help as best I can, I normally do.
I firmly believe that Bitcoin will either achieve its intended goal of separating the state from money, or the less desirable accomplishment of backing fiat currencies with a hard asset.
Once this is achieved, I think Bitcoin has the best chance in the history of mankind to solve poverty on a global scale. This is the part that fascinates me the most and this is the part I intend to put the majority of my focus on.
Despite yourself, I intend to fix poverty within my lifetime. I’d rather fail trying, then not try at all.
Most projects I attempt, I am generally 80% successful. Watch the next 30 years of my life to see how I get on. If I fail, you are welcome to insult me on my death bed as I draw my last breath.
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