Situated in a plum spot behind the Belize Barrier Reef, French Louie Caye is about a two-hour plane ride from most East Coast American cities. The two acre island gives you a coral sand beach, mangrove ecology and a place to call home. A 4 day/3 night package is $1,300 for two people and includes a cabana or tent, all meals catered to taste (alcohol not included), transportation from Placencia Village, snorkel gear, and kayaks. And yes, you can stay additional nights at a per diem.
Private Island (2013) 18 HD
In April 2017, roughly 5,000 people spent hundreds to thousands of dollars for tickets to what they thought would be the experience of a lifetime: a luxury music festival in an idyllic tropical setting on a private island in the Bahamas.
Festival-goers were promised a real-life island fantasy with luxury accommodations, gourmet food and the chance to party with celebrities like rapper Ja Rule and models Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. But the reality was closer to a disaster that played out in real-time on social media: Thousands of attendees arrived in the Bahamas to find disorganization as fellow festival-goers scrambled to claim a limited number of tents (rather than the luxury villas they'd been promised), some with bare, soaking-wet mattresses that had been left outside in the rain.
When Magnises began to stall due to customer complaints and defections, McFarland launched a new company, called Fyre Media, in 2016 and teamed with rapper Ja Rule (whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins). Fyre Media touted a celebrity booking app that promised to connect users looking to book musical artists like Jay-Z and Beyonce for private events with the touch of a button.
Meanwhile, McFarland set about marketing the event by paying to fly supermodels Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, Allesandra Ambrosio and others on a private plane to the Bahamas for a promotional photo shoot that would frame Fyre Festival as the luxury experience McFarland wanted prospective attendees to think it was. In the months leading up to the festival, Fyre Media even paid numerous celebrities and influencers to tout the festival on their social media accounts, including a reported $250,000 payment to Kendall Jenner for just one Instagram post that she sent out to her more than 100 million followers.
However, the SEC noted in a statement announcing McFarland's settlement that the Fyre Media cofounder "used investor funds to bankroll a lavish lifestyle including living in a Manhattan penthouse apartment, partying with celebrities, and traveling by private plane and chauffeured luxury cars."
The federal charges against Jeffrey Epstein, unsealed on Monday morning in New York City, open the latest chapter in the very public campaign to bring the financier to justice. They also underscore how little is known about his life, including the source of his wealth, and how what is known doesn't quite add up. For instance: Is that really a temple on his private island? And to what?
Epstein's island, officially known as Little Saint James, is situated between St. Thomas and St. John, two of the largest islands of the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. Its 78 acres resemble a bird in flight, with its head, tail, and two wings corresponding to the intercardinal directions:
It strongly resembles a temple, though of which sort remains elusive. Epstein is Jewish, and it is possible that he wanted his own private synagogue. But the statuary would be out of place at such a temple, given the Old Testament's prohibition on graven images. Though the cubic base and dome call to mind Islamic architecture, Poseidon would likewise be an odd choice for a mosque. Churches, of course, tend to feature crosses.
Epstein built a stone mansion with cream-colored walls and a bright turquoise roof surrounded by several other structures including the maids' quarters and a massive, square-shaped white building on one end of the island. Workers told each other it was a music room fitted with a grand piano and acoustic walls. Its gold dome flew off during the deadly 2017 hurricane season.
But Both, the Chicago contractor and engineer, said the smaller structure looked less like a secret entrance and more like a cistern for storing or treating water, a necessity for bringing plumbing to the more remote parts of the island. Another possibility, he added, was "a small caretaker's shack which might include equipment for maintaining the property."
All of the attention hasn't been uniformly conspiratorial. In 2017, the Twitter user The War Economy assembled what is likely the most comprehensive resource about Little St. James, including the identities of several architects who helped design the island's buildings. However, those architects provided their services long before the temple-like building first appeared.
Ekaterina Rybolovleva, the 24-year-old daughter of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, has officially acquired Skorpios, the private Greek island owned by Athina Onassis Roussel, the sole heir of late shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
Rybolovlev's daughter is said to be acquiring Skorpios and Sparti for business as well as pleasure, with reported plans to create an island retreat for the world's rich and powerful, according to several Greek news outlets.
After Onassis' 1975 death, the private island passed down through the family, becoming the property of Athina Onassis Roussel, his 28-year old granddaughter and sole living heir, in 1988 after her mother Christina died of a heart attack. The shipping scion, Christina and his son Alexander are all buried on the island.
As for Rybolovleva, the private island won't be the only trophy property in her portfolio. The Russian heiress also owns a penthouse apartment in Manhattan's elite building 15 Central Park West, purchased via trust last year. After a mere month on the market, the 6,744-square foot condo, listed by former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill, fetched the full $88 million asking price from Rybolovleva in one of the U.S.'s most expensive home sales ever.
Private Islands is an Emmy Award winning American travel television series. Host Amber Wyatt goes on adventures around the world, exploring not only private islands, but luxurious resorts, and the expansive cultures in each location. The show is a product of AWE (A Wealth of Entertainment) network.
Whakaari / White Island ([faˈkaːɾi], Māori: Te Puia Whakaari, lit. "the dramatic volcano"[1]), also known as White Island or Whakaari, is an active andesite stratovolcano situated 48 km (30 mi) from the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, in the Bay of Plenty. The island covers an area of approximately 325 ha (800 acres),[2] which is just the peak of a much larger submarine volcano.
The island is New Zealand's most active cone volcano, and has been built up by continuous volcanic activity over the past 150,000 years.[3] The nearest mainland towns are Whakatane and Tauranga. The island has been in a nearly continuous stage of releasing volcanic gas at least since it was sighted by James Cook in 1769. Whakaari erupted continually from December 1975 until September 2000, and also erupted in 2012, 2016, and 2019.
A large eruption occurred at 14:11 on 9 December 2019, which resulted in 22 fatalities, including two people who were missing and ruled to be dead by a coroner.[4][5] Twenty-five survivors were seriously injured, many critically and suffering severe burns. Three survivors suffered minor injuries. Forty-seven people were reportedly on the island when it erupted. A second eruption closely followed the first.[6]
The island is generally rugged, with cliffs surrounding most of the coast. The only exceptions are to the southeast of the crater, where ash and boulder slopes descend to Te Awapuia Bay (also known as Crater Bay), the site of derelict buildings and the island's wharf. This bay lies between a prominent headland, Troup Head, at the island's southeastern extreme, and the island's southernmost point, Otaketake, which is the site of one of the island's gannet colonies. Another colony exists at Te Hokowhitu, the cliff which forms much of the western coast of the island.[7]
Several rock reefs and islets are located along the island's northeast coast, and there is also a rock reef at Troup Head.[7] A small islet, Club Rocks, lies 800-metre (2,600 ft) south of Otaketake Point. It consists of a set of four sea stacks rising to more than 20-metre (66 ft) above sea level. In addition, four sea stacks collectively known as Volckner Rocks lie 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northwest of Whakaari / White Island. Three of these sea stacks rise precipitously from the sea floor (less than 100 metres (330 ft) below sea level) to a maximum height of 113 metres (371 ft) m above sea level. The fourth sea stack is just an eroded stump.[8][9][10]
Volcanologists from the GeoNet Project continually monitor the volcano's activity via surveillance cameras. Survey pegs, magnetometers and seismography equipment for early earthquake warnings via radio were installed on the crater walls in 1976.[21] At most times the volcanic activity is limited to steaming fumaroles and boiling mud,[16] but gas and ash emissions are common,[22] and the island is typically on an alert level rating of 1 or 2 on a scale of 0 to 5; as "Level 2 is the highest alert level before an eruption takes place and indicates 'moderate to heightened volcanic unrest' with the 'potential for eruption hazards.'"[23] The volcano is also monitored by the Deep Earth Carbon Degassing Project.
Between July and August 2012 the island showed signs of increased activity with lake and gas levels rising from inside the crater. On 5 August 2012 a minor eruption occurred,[25] sending ash into the air. More eruptions have followed since.[26]
At 14:11 NZDT[31] on 9 December 2019, Whakaari / White Island erupted. It was reported that there were forty-seven people on the island when the eruption happened.[32] Twenty-two people were killed, including two people who are missing and confirmed dead on 23 January 2020,[4] and a further twenty-five were seriously injured, many critically. The bodies of two victims have not been recovered and may have been lost to the sea.[33] The ongoing seismic and volcanic activity in the area and subsequently heavy rainfall as well as low visibility and toxic gases all hampered recovery efforts.[34][35] 2ff7e9595c
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