Thanks for all the nice comments everyone. The bacon is fantastic, as everyone that has made it says “I will never buy store bought again”.
I had been out of town the week before on business and got my belly on the way home from an abattoir. I had read both methods and had planned on making up my mind before picking up the belly as I could have had them remove the skin. Being the newbie that I am to all of this and NOT doing my reading and waffling on the decision I just left it on. At the end of the day I decided that I wanted to remove the skin before smoking.
I am no butcher by any stretch, so if I could remove the skin anyone can. I watched this video
https://youtu.be/bqqdHi9WLAs and just took my time. To make it easier I started by cutting the belly into the 4 pieces that would fit into the freezer bags before removing the skin. You can see in this picture you need to get a pretty good grip on the skin once you get going, after that it is a matter of getting a good angle upward without going too far upward to the point of cutting the skin.