50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 900 Cape Verde's New Challenges

Meanwhile, the removed rock layers can be piled up 500 meters away from the coastline to form the foundation of the breakwater.

Because there is no fresh water, life on the island will be very inconvenient in the future.

He plans to dig a large artificial lake with a diameter of 500 meters at the center of the island, at the highest point of the hill.

At the same time, seawater desalination equipment was installed next to the lake.

In the future, this lake will become a source of freshwater for Iyalos Island, which will also benefit the irrigation of the island's vegetation.

Sun Zhiwei spent less than a day on the island, but he completed the overall plan and even contacted suppliers of the most time-consuming breakwater material.

Later, he planned to contract the entire construction project of Ialos Island to the America Construction Team, which had helped him build Anatahan Island.

Although their fees are not cheap, the quality is truly unquestionable. Another advantage is that they can contact various islands to access the necessary equipment and facilities, which can save a lot of time.

He then contacted the Robert Group headquarters in New York and asked them to send a supervisory team to oversee and manage the redevelopment plan for Iyaros Island.

He's no longer all alone; all the mundane tasks are taken care of for him. It's so much easier than a few years ago when he had to do everything himself, which is really nice.

The renovation of Ialos Island is just a small project, and we believe we will see results in three months.

Whether things will proceed smoothly according to his plan remains to be seen.

Considering the Greeks' lazy nature, by the time they realize what's happening, any further changes will likely be after the island's transformation is complete. In that case, it's fine to deal with it when he has time.

Sun Zhiwei returned to Athens that same day.

After consulting with many locals, he learned the locations of the most fertile land in the vicinity: Crete, the Starrigal Plain, and Naxos.

His island of Ialos needs to be filled with a large amount of fertile soil, which can only be dug from other places.

Digging doesn't take much effort; the only thing to be careful about is not causing any major news events like the collapse of the sky or a sinkhole.

So he first dug up a lot of rocks on the seabed, and then went to the main agricultural areas of Greece to replace some of the deep fertile soil with the seabed rocks.

After digging up the soil, he used the same method to replace the underground rock layers in most parts of the island with fertile soil.

Finally, only the top ten centimeters or so were left, in order to minimize damage to the current surface environment.

The replaced granite was neatly stacked by him 500 meters below the surface of the sea, encircling the entire island twice.

Because he dug up so much soil, he also dug up the lake at the highest point of the island and then piled the remaining soil into the lake.

With that, all the preliminary work for the transformation of Iyalos Island was completed. Now all that was left was for the construction team to arrive and begin the actual construction, which was no longer his concern.

Having finished his work on the islands in the Aegean Sea, he now has to consider the issue of Bulawa Island in Cape Verde, North Africa.

It must be said that each of the three islands acquired at the auction has its own problems.

But Sun Zhiwei didn't complain too much. If there were no problems, no one would have sold the business to him so easily.

There are very few private islands in the world that can be traded, especially free islands without any conditions.

Once the island issue is resolved, he will be able to obtain a truly private island of his own. Just like the ownership certificate for Ialos Island, its ownership is a completely different concept from the small island that will be put up for sale here decades later.

The island of Iyarus, which Sun Zhiwei took over, is both a liability and a problem for Greece, and the Greek military has long wanted to get rid of this trouble.

His smooth takeover was partly due to the tacit approval of the Greek government.

There are two types of private islands in Greece: "restrained" islands and "unrestrained" islands.

The ownership certificate for Iyaros Island that Sun Zhiwei currently holds is similar to the ownership certificates for many islands held by local families with inherited traditions; it belongs to the category of "unbound" islands.

He owns almost all the rights to Ialos Island, which can be sold or inherited, and the tax rate is very low.

Decades later, the Aegean islands that the Greek government offered up were subject to many restrictions and were considered "restricted" islands.

The new "island owners" have to apply to the Greek Land Registry for permission to do anything they want to do on the island, even just moving a single tree or blade of grass.

Even if they no longer want the property and want to sell it, they still need the consent of the Greek Land Authority and even the approval of the Greek Parliament.

They need to approve who to sell to and agree to the selling price.

Finally, after the island is sold, a 30% transaction tax must be paid to the Greek government.

The conditions are incredibly demanding, yet many celebrities and wealthy individuals still dream of owning a vacation island in the Aegean Sea.

Later figures like Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, and Johnny Depp, the Hollywood star, were all owners of Greek islands.

Iyalos Island now belongs to him, but there are still some loose ends to be sorted out, which Sun Zhiwei doesn't seem to care about.

Because if he can't solve the problem, he can still contact the person who raised the problem.

With the issue of Iyarus Island in Greece settled, the issue of Brava Island in Cape Verde was officially put on his agenda.

The ownership certificate of the island provided by Pierre de Capet, the original owner of the island, is valid and has been verified by Christie's.

However, this does not mean that he will be able to successfully obtain ownership of the island. After all, times have changed, and the legal proof from back then would need to be recognized by the Republic of Cape Verde now.

Sun Zhiwei was well aware of the difficulty of this matter. The Republic of Cape Verde only has 10 islands in total. Asking them to give up one of them, and not even the smallest one, was incredibly difficult.

However, Sun Zhiwei still wanted to give it a try, since there was still a possibility, because what he held in his hand was a certificate of island ownership that complied with international law.

The name Cape Verde originated in 1445.

Back then, the name did not belong to the present-day Republic of Cape Verde, but referred to the westernmost cape on the west coast of Africa, which is now Dakar, the capital of Senegal.

When Portuguese colonist Dinís Fernández's ships first sailed to the westernmost point of Africa, they discovered a green cape covered with tamarind trees.

(A cape, also known as a headland, is a pointed piece of land that juts into the sea and is usually surrounded by water on three sides.)
Dinis Fernandez excitedly named this African point "Cape Verde," which means "green cape" in Portuguese.

Subsequently, the Cape Verde Islands were discovered by Portuguese navigators. The islands were uninhabited before they were discovered.

(End of this chapter)