Living a Good Life Diving Isla Mujeres

After winning a battle with leukemia, surviving the tech crash and a real estate crash it was time for something completely different. Jim Silver decided to make his passion his business. He set out to purchase a dive business in the Caribbean. Some friends told him about a unique opportunity and the rest is history...

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Transcript

Commercial:  0:02
Welcome. You are listening to the overseas life redesign podcast where you'll hear fun relaxed and inspirational interviews with people who are really living the dream. I'm Dawn Fleming an attorney turned alchemist and your host for the show coming to you from the tropical island paradise of Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Listen to conversations with courageous souls who stepped out of their comfort zone and designed a new way of life. They'll share their experiences, wisdom and offer practical steps you can take to redesign your life overseas. Listen, and you'll believe if you can dream it, you can achieve it.

Dawn:   0:42
Okay, I'm here today with Jim Silver and he owns a dive business, and we are going to hear all about how that came about. And thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. So the name of your business is 

Jim Silver:   0:59
Aqua Adventures, ECO divers

Dawn:   1:01
Okay, And my plug, a website. If you have on and

Jim Silver:   1:07
me being the second owner of this business, I have to give credit to the founder who, however, she was inspired to do this. She picked the URL Dive islamujeres.com Oh, about solving your SEO problem. Get-go. When I evaluated the business years ago, that was one of the biggest after.

Dawn:   1:29
Yeah, awesome no problem. It'll be in the show notes, too, because I always do a transcript for folks too So So tell us how this business came about.

Jim Silver:   1:41
Well, first, let me just say when we kind of adopted. We have a reasonably small boat in the dive business. People refer to cattle car boats. So we give ah, pretty intimate experience. No more than eight divers on the boat, our demographics. We love families, traveling families. We get a lot of we get retired people who are adventure-oriented. They're still working, but their kids were grown and they're traveling and having fun. Um and, you know, we get young professionals, so we take him diving, we teach diving. We put a lot of people in the water. For the first time. We have snorkeling tours and in the summer we have, well, shark tours. So we really have fun, have a great team of people. We love what we do. It's a wonderful thing to introduce people to for the first time and also priestly slow. We live a little bit in the shadow of that island to the south. I forget the name of it, but anyway, it's a wonderful business, and it's the customers, the  clients, the people who come here that make it so great

Dawn:   2:52
you Love it.   

Jim Silver:   2:53
I love it 

Jim Silver:   2:55
challenging. Um, when I came here to do this in 2012 being a dive instructor and dive pro was really in my mind A little Did I know I would become a book? Avian Reservation management agents. It is what it is. But anyway,

Dawn:   3:16
so, uh, is it one boat you have?

Jim Silver:   3:18
We have one boat on my captain who I loved to depth who actually dove with this company is a customer in the summer of 2011 where I met Wilbur as a divemaster as dive pros. We bonded just in that in that experience, having fun, You never really take your dive pro hat off when you're an instructor or divemaster. And, uh So anyway, he's been with me the whole time. Where is he going? What was the question? You

Dawn:   3:50
had one boat looking standing around?

Jim Silver:   3:54
Robert's brother in law and his nephew have to well, circus boats there are partners for well, short in the summer. They also sometimes back us up if we need a second boat or we need a backup. Oh, so you know, there's a real family component to this business that I'm delighted as a U. S. Citizen is coming here is an immigrant. To have a part of my world. So but, yes, One boat. She's a mid-engine diesel with a big swim step on the dive ladder and divers that are listening out there. We giant step off the swim staff and we back rolls slow freeboard. And really, she's a great platform. Another really good thing that the founder of the business did was set up a good, solid dive, okay, for our conditions here, so yeah.

Dawn:   4:48
So take us back to before you have a business where you did you look at different areas or having a business like this. 

Dawn:   4:58
I was in the U S. I had left. My real status is behind. I was an agent. I was a broker at mode real estate practice in Northern California for nine or 10 years. You remember, see real estate crash and doesn't eight. And so anyway, I was looking from beliefs on up through you 10 I made a couple of trips to Isla Mujeres as a tourist and see, I think 2008 in 2011. And so what attracted me to this part of the world is one. It's not that tough to get back to the US my friends, who even in Panama, felt it was a long way to get back. Um and, uh, the prices is the reasonable cost of living cost of doing business. It's not like Island seven, the Caribbean, where things were very expensive because it's so hard to get things. They're very remote. So I looked at an opportunity. Bullies. This opportunity was presented to me in early June of 2012 because the business had closed. I had friends on the island. They knew about the business closing. They knew that I was interested in heading down this way and being in the dive business and doing underwater photography, which is one of my passions. They called me and said, Hey, Jim, this stuff is here this close business. Do you have any interest in resurrecting this? So had my a business. I mean, solved a number of different problems in self-employment are tough if you could do it. You know,

Dawn:   6:51
you don't have to start from scratch. Starting from scratch is always much harder than you got something.

Jim Silver:   6:57
You're right. The pieces here. The structure was here. It was just a matter of bringing back to life. Your voice back. So

Dawn:   7:05
Did it was that more difficult than you anticipated? Easier about the same. How would you describe that exercise?

Jim Silver:   7:14
There were issues within the company structure and the permitting structure that didn't service through my due diligence on. So those things had to be dealt with eventually. And, you know, any time you take on something that's not brand new out of the box, there's always some lurking something or other. I mean, the boat was turned out to be in worse shape than I thought off. She needed a lot of loving care. I So, anyway, um

Dawn:   8:00
what? Good. Yeah. Yeah, there's always something, but it doesn't sound like it was to deal with the deal-breaker. Didn't It was a showstopper. Is, uh

Jim Silver:   8:08
well right? Nothing happened that made me go. You know I can't do this. It's time to go home. Yeah, or do something else. Although there was a moment a couple of years ago when I did start looking for another job because I did. You know, I had too many employees. I was struggling with letting them go. The business was hurting a little bit. What oh, I need to do to make this survive ended up just sweating it out and, you know, scaling back on expenses as much as possible. That's what you have to do when you have a business of times.

Dawn:   8:44
So well, you know, through the years I've heard that you know, people that have grown a business only to say Oh, you know, this isn't really what I want and then, you know, scaled it back. And we're much happier with you, no less stress, less overhead. 

Jim Silver:   9:01
But in that sack ability to know that it is. Because At times I've resisted intentionally. Well, you don't with thought with analysis taking on a second boat, doubling the business don't work. You know, I turned 62 last summer, not 42. And so Empire building really isn't part of the equation. It's living a life of fun. Hopefully, you've got to support the business. I don't have an oil well back home. Right on. So So, Yeah, it's

Dawn:   9:41
good. So, um okay, let's go back a little bit further to the idea of living outside the United States. What? What kind of prompted that? That I'll come back In

Jim Silver:   9:55
the early nineties, I took my first adventure travel trip outside the U. S. I've been a water person all my life, and I raced sailboats and wind served on San Francisco Bay, where the water's cold. And finally, I decided I was gonna travel for one serving vacation. So I ended up in Cabaret in the Dominican Republic. Absolutely fell in love with the culture. It's a melting pot. Tropical fruit. Well, mojitos, warm water, you know, just like wow, you know, were great people. These is yet amazing people. So that really planted the seeds for you know how at some point what will I have? How will I eventually make a transition to this place? And it certainly is one of those situations where gosh, I wish I'd bought land or property in the Dominican Republican 1991 right? Those moments, but that probably where you know.

Dawn:   11:11
So that's that was 20 years before you make the block the business here. Right? So that germinated a long time. Well, it did.

Jim Silver:   11:22
I mean, I had a career in high tech back then. Oh, my kids were in elementary school and junior high. You know, I certainly was much more grounded and rooted in Northern California with family and career and so forth and in the meantime, took the kids to We've made a trip to stop. Oh, we made a trip skating me what will go on the West Coast. Things that extra trips Andi just, you know, enjoy getting out of the U. S. And getting some warm locations. Somehow I never made it to the Alps, but at any rate, yeah, so just continued as the kids grew up and gave them adventures were an adventure family. So?

Dawn:   12:16
So they enjoyed that, too. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Do they have? Then come down here.

Jim Silver:   12:23
The girls. I have twin daughters, 26 that have graduated from UC Davis in San Diego State. They're living in San Francisco's, and, you know, they've both made a couple of trips down. They both dive, get three pictures of the diamonds with both. But they also have their own lives in the war than Michelle went to Thailand with somebody's last year. And so I have to find ways to tear them away from their lives and say, Come on down here. You have it. Family dis visitors in Mexico. What's right? So anyway, on my son's been down. He's lives in Brooklyn. So anyway, But I have to go back to when I was their age head my life. Actors.

Dawn:   13:14
Yeah, it's complicated, and living in the United States and all the things that go along with that.

Jim Silver:   13:20
But social media has made it much easier for families and friends to stay connected. Absolutely, Andy. And in many ways, it makes it easier to stay connected with your clients, your former customers. Hey, you know, they're sitting at home Where where are we gonna go for vacation this year? Won't catch imposes of great pictures. The other, right. Maybe we should go back to Isla Mujeres are not a tough decision for a lot of people,

Dawn:   13:48
right? Yeah, Tom, cause I'm getting eaten it getting bitten by the Isla bug. Great. So what? Um, what kind of advice would you give to somebody that was thinking about making a dramatic move like that was it? Was there any fear involved when you did it or where were you? Pretty much like. Yeah, This is this what? I'm gonna Doh! I'm ready or tell. Take me. kind of do that. That mental and emotional journey about moving away from your home country?

Jim Silver:   14:23
Well, certainly the backplane for the or that. The bottom of the staircase. Um, there's a funny of their financial issues. Can I actually do this? Can I feed myself? Can I pay for a place to live? Do I have a nest egg? Do I have passive income from somewhere else? Can you cannot make this work, do I? Do I have something in the bank? So in my case, I had the experience of running my own business. I had information from a business side evaluated to die visits and believes I had their business model. I had some experience with how businesses ran any slower these dive businesses. So I had a pretty good sense that I would be able to make this work. It was a business that had run. I had been a customer of one point I consulted with people that go over with the business and, uh, you know, person, particularly You, think I should Yeah, go for it. So that's an encouragement. So you know if if you don't have a plan, if you don't have a framework that hopefully, you have a financial push in that will let you explore an area, look for opportunities and build something organic.

Dawn:   15:51
Right, I didn't know.

Jim Silver:   15:52
have a trust fund, Baby. I took a hit in the high tech crash. I look to you hit in the real estate, I was going to ask about the real estate crash. So it's not like, you know, it's not like I had a year's worth of living expenses in the bank when I chose to do this

Dawn:   16:10
or a substantial passive income. Which is that?  So because people, I think people wonder about that, you know, like, do these people just have another source of income? And at times they don't you know,

Jim Silver:   16:26
to be perfectly honest, if you could make a living in the real estate business, you could probably make a living doing almost anything you want. I interview when I interviewed people that work in the company. It's a couple of question I'd like to ask one is, Have you ever worked on straight commission? Real estate? Of course. Absolutely. And they often look at me and go, Oh my gosh, no! And I'm like, Well, that's what running a small business is absolute. If I don't sell a dive or tour not arrested,

Dawn:   17:02
none of us get paid way.

Jim Silver:   17:05
We don't need to and I'm all school. What companion question, or maybe instead, is What do you think my most important job is, and they talk about dive, safety, and equipment in the boat, and I don't let him go on too long before I say, Look, if nobody comes in that door, none of the rest of this batters will do the rest, so it's all-important. But if you're looking to take that leap and you want to support yourself in run a business, you have to be able to bring clients, customers, one way or another to the tape. And, of course, Estella is a blessing because it has wonderful repeat business, even though in the eight years that I've been here, almost there's still tons of people who have no idea where Isla Mujeres is. I was in a meeting 4 5 years ago with the head of the Marine Park with other dive operators, and one of the other operators said, Why don't they call it the Isla Mujeres Underwater Museum and the director of the Marine Park that has a diesel matter of sector to Cancun? The sector looks at her and says because no one's ever heard of Isla Mujeres. So it's so this underwear museum off the tip of our island is called the Cancun

Dawn:   18:37
interesting. Well, I don't know. I just heard that Ultramar posted figures that said, We have 24,000 visitors a day. It's so somebody knows about this island

Jim Silver:   18:52
truth matters. I referred to Isla as Mexico's Key West. It's the tip of the island is the easternmost tip of the entire country. If you know what New Year's here is like, it's phenomenal. We have a Mardi Gras carnival coming up, so Mexico's middle class is becoming wealthier as the years go by. This is a huge tourist and destination for Mexico. Yes, absolutely. And of course, we get tours from all over the world. Cancun's opened a couple of years ago.  A 4th terminal so there's no shortage of people coming here, that's for sure,

Dawn:   19:35
right? So right, absolutely. We'll be back in a moment. 

Commercial:  19:44
Isla Mujeres is a Caribbean jewel off the coast of Cancun. Castillito Del Caribe warmly invites you to enjoy our spectacular oceanfront Villa located in the heart of El Centro and a short walk to Playa Norte, which is ranked one of the top 10 beaches in the world with an ocean view of crystal clear turquoise waters overlooking both the Caribbean and Cancun city skyline. We offer a fabulous location for you to enjoy all the peace and tranquility you're looking for on vacation, while also taking in all the excitement the Island has to offer with activities either in walking distance or a golf cart day excursion away. Please visit Castillito Del Caribe www.castillitocaribe.com. We look forward to seeing you soon.

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Integrity Vacation Property Management: Trust, Truth, Results. From buyer's representative services to rental market analysis, staging, marketing, and full-service property management. Achieving your goals is our top priority. Visit our website at www.integrityvpm.com and get our free guide, Self-manage or Hire? A property owner's checklist of issues to consider. Contact us for a free consultation to see if we can help you maximize the return on your investments. Integrity VPM raising the bar in vacation property management. Welcome back to the overseas life redesign podcast. Thank you so much for being here. And we invite you to subscribe if you like what you hear.

Dawn:   21:19
Welcome back to the overseas like a redesigned podcast. Thank you so much for being here, and we invite you to subscribe if you like what you hear. So you had looked at some other areas. You said bullies and Hamas and other islands. And was it purely economic exercise? Or were there some other factors?

Jim Silver:   21:45
That's a great question, certainly in my criteria list was. It couldn't be expensive like, say, bar or the other islands in the Caribbean, and it had to be again fairly easy to get back to the United States. It took me a while to realize how much closer we are to Miami than we are to Houston. It gets one out flight, so I actually make parts, runs there from time to time. But certainly a big part of it. Was The opportunity presented itself? I mean you don't know why these things happen in your life. And sometimes you, you know, will I kick myself if I don't do this. Um, all

Dawn:   22:36
right, How many? Come along,

Jim Silver:   22:37
Right, Right, right. How many chances. And so And it's funny. One of the huge pieces of the business that I really didn't have on my radar was the well short business. So it's a wonderful part of our business. Well, Shark has brought a lot of divers to Isla Mujeres, who might not have come here otherwise. Hey, we knew you need to go to Isla for the well sharks way. Why don't we dive there while we're there? We dive Cosmo all the time. Let's dive in isles. Let's just There are people who come to Casa Mel and combine it with any Isla trip and whale shark. This is really a phenomenal part of the world. The Yucatan is astounding, with both Mayan and Spanish history. Convents built in the 15 hundreds said no taste diving the caves in the cenotes, which actually have you know, safe dives close to the entrance is where we're not going down into the earth. Casa Mel. Amazing! Palese is 190 miles from here. Really, this turned out to be perfect. Amazingly better spot than I ever even anticipate. Both for lifestyle, for myself, my wife, and for traveling and getting around and in the business in the fund.

Dawn:   24:04
Awesome. So before we started the interview, you were telling me that you have a great deal of gratitude for each day that you're given, you wanna share a little bit about the challenges of this?

Jim Silver:   24:20
Absolutely. When I was 29 on the path to go back to college, which I hadn't done out of high school Like a lot of people, I made a side tour into the Coast Guard and should be to Alaska, Northern California. But after my son was born in 1980, two years after he was born in 1986 I was rudely my life was rudely interrupted, to put it mildly, with the leukemia diagnosis, Elf leukemia, which, thankfully, is fairly treatable compared to mileage is leukemia. I was windsurfing and mountain biking really healthy guy working. I'm going back to school to get my master's degree. Um, and adequate school was really sick when They called me into that hot hospital that night. To say you need to come down now. Your blood tests from today were you're in trouble.

Dawn:   25:24
So you were sick that you didn't know why

Jim Silver:   25:26
exactly. And in a week's time when I figured out what? Well, I went to the doctor actually with the doctor a day early because in a week's time, I really major downslide to the point where my capital Aries were bursting on. But frankly, be perfectly honest. The doctor who examined me during the day that Monday, September 16 1986 Not that lives in my memory for a particular reason. He should set me right across the street to the hospital because my blood counts were way out of whack. But anyway, so I got the call later that night by his partner was on call looking through the day's records and his eyes must have bugged out of his hands is like all this guy, and he may not make it through the night. So So anyway, long journey. A lot of chemotherapy, radiation treatment, obviously a success. I'm here like I told you before the interview. Whatever happened to be dealing with on any given day. If no one's telling me I'm relapsing in my leukemia, it's a pretty good day. So

Dawn:   26:44
and how long has he been in remission?

Jim Silver:   26:46
I finished treatment in, Um, actually, the final five days of chemotherapy started in October, the night of the big earthquake in Sanders. Let's go 89. There in the World Series was pre-game was on my way home. I'm gonna head down in the hospital for my Ivy and the Earthquake hits. And luckily we were far enough from the epicenter that we had some shaking. But I called the hospital. They should come on down. So say, that's when I finished.

Dawn:   27:25
That was it. That

Jim Silver:   27:27
was the last five-day segment of chemo.

Dawn:   27:30
Okay, Wow. So that it's been a long time.

Jim Silver:   27:32
It's been a long time. So what is this? A few 2019? That's 30 years since the end of treatment. You know you are my fellow cancer patients will testify to you tiptoe around a lot way all worry about a recurrence of relapse. And, um, one of the motivating factors, certainly throughout my life has been, comes from sitting in support groups at John your hospital in Walnut Creek, California. And there were people in those groups with their families. Didn't have the prognosis die. And you feel a real responsibility to those people and their families to go forward with your life. And don't let fear live it following live it fully. Exactly. So, yeah, it's a

Dawn:   28:38
wow. So So what do you say? Moving to Mexico is no big deal 

Jim Silver:   28:44
after the big scheme of things. It, You know what? They put it in perspective. I wasn't moving to the Amazon. If I miss the United States, a 20-minute ferry ride, a 10-minute cab ride, and I'm having pizza at the cocotte Costco in Cancun. So, you know, great WiFi great cellular service thing this season. Virus. Mexico is not the Dominican Republic. I mean, it's cosmopolitan. No, Emmy and I went to see the Cancun Symphony performed coming of your Ana is Mrs. Okay, so? So we get our taste of culture as best we can. So, um, you know, there are more remote places than Isla Mujeres on the planet.

Dawn:   29:39
Right? Well, awesome. Well, this has been really, really great. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you like to share before we wrap it up?

Jim Silver:   29:48
You didn't ask me, Jim, is it? Is it hard or scary to become a diver?

Jim Silver:   29:54
Oh, do you dive? 

Dawn:   29:56
Well, you know what? Come to think of it, it's on my list. I never wanted to get certified in California because it was too cold and too dark. That's I understand what you're saying. Well, I would love to get certified here, so, um yeah, I guess I did go swimming with the whale sharks, okay? And I loved it. It was I didn't know what to expect. I was actually a little bit scared about it because these are pretty large animals. But once and my husband made me get in first, I wanted to, as I wanted, like, have somebody else go first so I could kind of scope it out and see what was going on and find out what the drug was, but oh, no. Everybody else was screwing around, putting their gear on and stuff. And he's like, So off we went So the second time. I was much more relaxed than the first time. And these guys were booking I thought they would just be sort of gliding through the water. No, no way. Well, I came

Jim Silver:   31:02
to diving like a lot of people through what often is called resort Dive. And there's an official name called Discover Scuba, where we can take people diving without certification can you were limited to how deep we could take him. Okay, we can only take a certain number with the instructor, but it's a real eye-opener for a lot of people. Talk about conquering fear. A lot of people do, you know, raise their personal bar by shedding that regulator in their mouth and going underwater. I tell people if you like other worlds,

Dawn:   31:37
I love snorkeling and I. Before we left Florida, I got one of those sea views one can ask Cool, which I love a supposed to a traditional snorkel. 

Jim Silver:   31:45
What's time to get you underwater?

Dawn:   31:47
I think so. Looking at the fish? Yeah,

Jim Silver:   31:50
do not look. You're looking down at him in snorkel diving. You're in the fish tank. That's why they put fish tanks in doctor's offices because it's really relaxing. Oh yeah. So anywhere day is coming

Dawn:   32:04
perfect. Well, I look forward to it. Well, It's been a pleasure, Jim. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the opportunity.

Jim Silver:   32:11
It's special, All right. Appreciate. It was

Dawn:   32:15
awesome. 

Commercial:   32:18
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