Day 9 of my Internet Marketers Cruise trip and Grand Turk yesterday and for me, while it looked amazing from the balcony of my cabin, it was a bit of a disappointment after the natural beauty of St Thomas.

It’s apparently a military installation with a man made mini-resort called Margaritaville, owned by Carnival, and the immediate loveliness of the beach was spoiled by the rocks encountered a metre of so from the waters edge. We spent a lot of time by the pool instead having great and some spooky conversations (see below)

I’ve just come out of an amazing Mastermind session on the Internet Marketers Cruise, it’s our last day on the ship and there are 3-4 events today including the Farewell Dinner.

The format of the Mastermind was the same as we follow in my personal quarterly Mastermind group, which is to share the website, software tool or resource that has had the biggest impact on your business in the last year (you can say month, 3 months or 6 months depending on how often you meet).

Most of the shares were practical, a few were around having a vision and being more productive generally and one or two were very poignant and heartfelt, such as the regular and apparently much loved cruiser who has just been diagnosed with Alzeimers and doesn’t know if he’ll be back next year. That was a sad moment.

I’ll be sharing some of the best resources over at The Business Success Factory blog over the next week or so, so be sure to pop over there or opt into my mailing list here.

A happier moment was when Mike Filsaime proposed to his girlfriend Michelle (who seems really lovely) by playing a video of some of her best public moments on the cruise so far (filmed and edited together by the ever-working Jonathan who did it in a day!) then getting down on one knee to propose in front of everyone!

I was supposed to be recording some interviews this week, for my podcast, but we were all having such a great time, I thought it would be stressful and annoying to do that, so I’ll just contact everyone when I get back – or my VA will, because I’ve decided I need a personal one, now, urgently.

Over the week, I’ve got to know loads and loads of great people due to being with the boys, Andy, Pete, Minesh and Mark, who have been on the cruise every year for the last 4 years, since I went in 2009 and recommended it to Andy.

They are all very outgoing and make business contacts and friends separately as well as together so it’s very efficient as we are all listening out for each other and referring people to each other too. We’ve had some interesting and even spooky conversations with those people too.

So, I’m sitting on a sunbed in Grand Turk chatting to Margaret Kim and her son Tyler from Illinois, who are both very cool people. Margaret mentions her friend Jenny X whose name immediately rings a bell.

The blogger and affiliate marketer? I say and she says yes, Jenny’s one of my very best friends. No kidding, I say, she’s one of my sister Sarah Cairncross’ friends from Second Life!

Long and very enjoyable conversation ensues about how small the world is, real and virtual, what exactly Second Life is, as Tyler played the kids version for a long time and wanted to know what the adult version is like (he’s nearly 18) and he’s an app and gamification major so can’t wait to get in to SL and have a play with the scripting.

I tell him about that and how I got built and rented out three apartment blocks in SL to fund my virtual shopping habit and also about my mate Pete Jenkins who runs a software company, who is “Entrepreneur In Residence” at Brighton University and who just graduated Wharton Business School at the University of Pennysylvania in the top 5% and who is now No 1 on Google for “Gamification Expert UK” and in Australia too apparently, thanks to some simple SEO I did on his website.

Just goes to show, if people are the same kind of people, they’ll hook up with the same kind of people wherever they go! Talking of which, I played probably my last poker game on the ship last night and managed to win back all the money the “good ole boys” at the table had taken off me and more, so I’m well in profit on my game this week, something I’ll enjoy telling my home game poker boys at home.

OK, I’m off for a shower as there is a farewell cocktail party before the farewell dinner and I need to close off my poker account and collect my cash at some point. Then it’s off the ship tomorrow, one more night in Miami and then the flight home to a no-doubt cold and wet UK. There’s no place like home!

If you would like to join me next year on the Internet Marketers Cruise, just click that link there to find out more!