Project Calypso

This project started as an answer to our need of change but at the beginning it wasn’t really clear which direction we wanted to take. The reasons for such a need were pretty unclear and so were the expectations, in fact what we had was nothing more than the feeling that something was not correct, somehow. But there was actually nothing we could say we were missing because we actually had and still have everything. Things started clearing up few years ago after a short swim in the wonderful crystal-clear sea waters of one Elba island’s beach, when I got my hand full of tiny small pieces of plastic. By looking at the sea from the beach, the Mediterranean water was appearing to be one of the cleanest on hearth, but the reality was different: it was a soup of tiny pieces of plastic garbage, almost unnoticeable. That hand covered in plastic was for us a punch in the face. As ocean lover, we were quite familiar with everything endangering our oceans, and more extensively our planet, but su...

Portoferraio - Elba Island - Mediterranean Sea Do we really need a plan C?  Actually not, one back-up plan is normally more than enough unless you are NASA trying to send people on Mars and we definitely are not. The fact is that in the last weeks....maybe more months....thoughts went wild, focusing a lot on ocean conservation, minimalism, freedom, scuba diving as inner peace and self rediscovery experience. So these new ideas coming up are now slowly distancing us from a classic touristic model and moving to explore alternatives which are looking more at our impact on the environment, on our and others lives and less at how to get an income, even if low.. Plan C in fact starts from a totally different prospective. It is not about finding the best way to ensure a minimum income to be able to live sufficiently comfortable in a warm place with limited responsibilities. No, this plan starts from thinking which would be the best way to live with the minimum possible cost in a warm plac...

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. 

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...

The Dominican Republic is the sovereign country shearing the famous Hispaniola island with Haiti. It is the second larger country in the Antilles by area after Cuba and the third by population with more than 10 millions habitants speaking Spanish as official language. Santo Domingo is the well known capital. Dominican Republic is the most visited country of all the Caribbean thanks to its climate and the natural diversity. In the recent years, ecotourism has grown significantly bringing excellent progress in energy efficiency and waste recycling. Tourism together with agriculture contributed to develop the larger economy of the Caribbean which created a significant immigration flow from other Caribbean countries especially from the closed Haiti. Traditionally, Dominican Republic is not a scuba diving destination, the diving spots are relatively limited not because of poor marine life but mainly because traditionally the tourism industry focused on white beaches, resorts and...

 Curacao, the C of the ABC islands, is where this project actually started.  We spent two wonderful weeks there and we met several people who emigrated there because tired of ordinary life and they all inspired us to look for an alternative way of living. The island is a former Dutch colony with an independent Government but still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The fact that Curacao is independent but with a strong link with Europe represents an advantage because for us immigration procedures would be simpler than other Caribbean countries and at the same time we would enjoy the Caribbean relaxed management stile (including of course the issues). In addition to that, the positive aspects are great scuba diving sites, mostly shore dive, reasonably priced real estate, away from hurricanes area, increasing support to sustainability and ocean conservation policies, good potential for environmentally conscious tourism coming from Europe. So while we will keep exploring all...

Bonaire is the B of the well known ABC islands which are the three Leeward Antilles islands former Dutch colonies. Actually Bonaire is formally a special municipality of country of The Netherlands. The island is consider one of the top dive destination worldwide and in particular Bonaire is famous for being THE location for shore diving since no other place has so many dive sites reachable by shore. All the island is basically dedicated to diving tourism. mostly coming from North America, in fact beside the cruises tourists, almost all staying-over tourists are linked to diving. Compared with Curacao, Bonaire is smaller and offer not much more beside diving which is an aspect to consider well because it could be too limiting for a long period living. Additionally the island is in fact The Netherlands and this is not matching the idea to live in another country. Real estate prices are relative more expensive than the other two ABC islands, possibly due to the fact that the amount of acc...

Let's start with Antigua and Barbuda, the first Caribbean state of our list. Antigua and Barbuda are part of the Lesser Antilles, in the middle of the Leeward Island and includes other 45 minor islands mostly inhabited with few of the privately owned. Originally an English colony, Antigua and Barbuda gained full Independence in 1981 and nowadays is part of the Commonwealth, retaining Queen Elizabeth as head of state. English is therefore the official language. Population is around 96,000 with 97% of it living in Antigua. The economy is based mainly on tourism which accounts for more than 50% of the GDP. Almost ¾ of the total tourists arrive with cruise ships and the nationalities are mainly American and British. Antigua with the capital St. John’s is the main island, Barbuda is much less developed and even before the hurricane Irma that in 2017 destroyed everything, tourism offers was limited. Reconstruction was started but it remains to be seen how it will progress. There are no d...

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...