Winter Gulch locations?

Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 9 months ago to The Gulch: General
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We have discussed some possibilities for a future Gulch location. For starters, let's assume we will buy an island, rather than build one on "stilts" from a underground reef. Because of the list of islands in a web site listed below ranks islands in reverse order of quality, to make it easier to scroll through options, I have used their numbering system (and added to it).

Freedomforall makes the following recommendation:
14) An option is Guanaja in the Honduras Bay Islands. He has good friends who own a diving resort there. Great people from Texas. See:
http://www.clearwaterparadise.com/
Freedomforall also discussed Bonaire and Curacao down in the far southeastern

First, the EBay possibilities:

13. 55 acre private with several condos and amenities already developed $4 million, Abaco, Bahamas

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Private-Island-F...

12. 5 acre private island off of Nicaraguan coast $100 K with one home, but reserve not met

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BEAUTIFUL-5-ACRE...

11. 3 acres undeveloped private island 10 miles from Daytona Beach, FL $10 K opening bid for down payment

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-Acre-Private-I...

http://www.islands.com/gallery/top-10-pr...

10. Kastawei Island, Vanuatu: $199,000 - too small for the Gulch
9. Tahifehifa Island, Tonga: $370,205 - too small for the Gulch
8. Pink Pearl Island, Nicaragua: $500,000 - too small for the Gulch
7. Motu Opuou, French Polynesia: $742,886 - too small for the Gulch
6. Pelican Cay, Bahamas: $2,500,000
5. Bannister Caye, Belize: $2,500,000
4. Dumunpalit, Philippines: $3,400,000
3. Portofino Caye, Belize: $4,500,000
2. Manuhangi Atoll, French Polynesia: $8,667,003
1. Saddle Back Cay, Bahamas: $12,995,000

Personally, out of all these I like Option 13 in Abaco on the Bahamas best.

None of the above is an option.
If interested, rank your three favorite choices, with best first.
Brenner example: 13, 3, 12

Write-in votes will be considered.
A summer Gulch will be considered in a thread at some point in the future.



All Comments

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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree with Khalling and UncommonSense on the benefits of #12 with Nicaragua. That was my third choice, but it was a more than acceptable one. Five acres of property with only one home on it leaves room for expansion, but there is at least something to build off of in terms of amenities. There remains the possibility of making this into a for-profit venture in the interim before making it into a more full-time option. With the Nicaraguan option, we don't know what the reserve price is yet.
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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 9 months ago
    Halling:12
    I rule out Belize and Phillipines due to corruption of the govt in one and terrorism hotbed in the other. I would not support the US. The Bahamas are very expensive. Islands in general are difficult to import to. I know nothing about french polynesia but I 'll look into it.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    In fact, my lack of time to give at this point to the implementation of Atlantis is one of the reasons that my choices amongst the list described at the top of the thread were sites that already have some developed property. Site #5 for instance is already a site that the cruise ship companies use for afternoon excursions. This helps us pay for the eventual transformation to a more permanent Atlantis.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The reason I have been looking in the Gulch for Midas Mulligan is so that he can do the startup of this project. My best early contribution to Atlantis will come in the planning stage - like right now.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Port Orange is about 80 minutes away from me. I don't know enough spare time to run Atlantis. I don't think anyone who has not "retired" does. I definitely agree on the lean startup idea. That part of Florida is not that far from civilization and yet still feels like quite secluded. Port Orange and just a little north of there are probably the least developed part of the Atlantic coast of Florida.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 9 months ago
    My Vote: #11 - 3 acres in Port Orange, FL
    Reasons:
    - This would be jbrenners PT (near FT) job at the outset. It HAS to be close to him.
    - It is close to the space coast industries of Titusville.
    - It is somewhat close to two major universities with a lot of high-tech: Florida Tech and UF.
    - It's located near the so-called I-4 corridor, and not so far from Jacksonville and Orlando.
    - The same people who like St. Augustine might like to visit this island.
    - FL has a lot of weirdness, so if critics latch on to some unsavory behavior that happened once there (e.g. someone sneaked MDMA onto the island and had a bad reaction), you can just compare it to Miami, Jax, Orlando, etc. which all have high rates of risky behavior.
    - It is inexpensive, following the model of the Lean Startup. (Read that book.) Jbrenner runs the thing in his spare time and learns what people want and don't want from it. He tests value propositions BEFORE spending significant money. When it's time to buy a bigger island, he's got real #s, not just PowerPoint pictures.
    -CircuitGuy's parents live in FL, so if he served on the Board, he could write off the trips. J/K.
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  • Posted by $ johnrobert2 10 years, 9 months ago
    IMHO, some of the Polynesian islands offer the best bang for the buck. Some of the islands are isolated but of largish size. Thinking of some of the smaller islands in the Solomon group: Santa Isabel, Rendova, etc. Some of the islands in the Vanuatu group (one of which as listed). The Marianas might offer some good possibilities. Also, think of having a group of islands closely situated for easy governance and trade.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The Gulch government would be minimal, and has been addressed in a number of threads in the past. That is worth searching the Gulch archives with the keyword constitution.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I was writing the exact same thought at the same time. The resort just pays the bills.

    I think you should write a document (not to be shown to the people financing the hotel) saying which things a) you want the gov't of the Gulch never to do and b) you want the gov't of the Gulch always to do. This is a statement of principle, not necessarily something you can ever get the host nation to agree to. At first you have just a hotel in some Central American country, and the principles are something between goals and dreams. Assuming you could get some autonomy from the host country, how would the Gulch gov't work?
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 9 months ago
    Would it be okay if it started as a small hotel resort for the rich with no complicated legal structure or promises of tax abatement? You take the profits from the hotel resort and pour it into a non-profit arm that hires an executive director knowledgeable about international business law and fund raising. That person spends his/her time calling rich people and asking them to donate/invest, getting to know people in the nearest chambers of commerce, getting to know people in the nearest gov't, going to conferences about libertarianism, sustainable development, seasteading, etc. Her/his job is to sell the dream and "jobs" and to build a Rolodex that will remain property of the non-profit.

    Before all that happens, jbrenner and friends need to scape together about 1 million dollars for buying the land and developing it. Your partner who has worked in the hospitality industry does all the talking to the banks about a high-end resort, but you're really thinking in ten years some biotech startup that wants to hire people from around the world w/o immigration hassles is going to locate that and potentially be more profitable than the resort, which is just there to pay the bills.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 9 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Some of these options are not all that bad from a price standpoint. Perhaps we could set up a timeshare situation, or even set part of the island up as a Galtish for profit resort.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 9 months ago
    I imagine that these tropical and sub-tropical locations would be expensive in cost per acre. Low cost per acre is a must IMHO.

    Another must is a friendly host gov't. It seems like the deal would have to be you would buy the island develop it and get some tax and regulatory abatement in exchange for developing it.

    When I think of doing this, I always think of sub-arctic locations that don't have a large gov't presence nearby. I'm not sure this is the right approach, just what comes to mind. I think of places like Antarctica, which is controlled by an international coalition.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 9 months ago
    With an apology to the one person who gave me a thumbs-up on the recently deleted version. This one looks a lot more readable.
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