I’m Suse Sullivan-Green, founder of Women’s Water Wellness Retreats, mermaid wrangler, Director of Saltwater Shenanigans and lifelong lover of the water.

Although, full disclosure, there was a fairly ridiculous 40-year stretch where life got in the way of submerging.

Like a lot of women, I became very good at being capable. Work, family, relationships, responsibility, difficult seasons, disappointing people, demanding jobs and the occasional life chapter best filed under “what the hell was that?” I kept showing up and doing what needed to be done, until I realised the thing I had misplaced wasn’t my phone or my car keys. It was me.

The way back started with a charity swim challenge I signed up for with good memories of teenage swim squads and very little respect for how many years had passed since then. The first session was humbling. Very humbling. Then the laps got easier, my breathing settled and something shifted. By the end, I had raised money for charity, but I had also remembered how much I needed the water.

Soon after, I joined an open water swimming squad and found something I had not realised I was missing: the power of saltwater, and the strange magic of people who think getting up early to swim in the ocean is a perfectly reasonable life choice.

While I may have taken the scenic route back to swimming, I never strayed too far from water, travel or the art of a beautifully hosted escape. I built a career working with places people dream of escaping to, from Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef to the ski fields of Aspen/Snowmass in Colorado, and the coastal, country and city destinations behind Peppers, Mantra and BreakFree Resorts.

That career taught me how much the details matter: the setting, the welcome, the pace, the food, the timing and all the quiet work that makes an experience feel effortless.

More recently, my work in health promotion has given me a deeper respect for the simple things that make people feel better: being in the right environment, moving your body and resting properly.

My certification as an ocean therapy practitioner, gave structure to something I already knew in my bones: water helps. Time in and around water can shift the way we feel, move, think and carry what life throws at us. My qualification in tarot therapy adds another reflective tool, which I use through story, symbolism and gentle questioning rather than anything mystical or predictive.

Together, those threads became Women’s Water Wellness Retreats: travel, hosting, water, reflection, rest, movement, connection and good women around you. In other words, everything I know about creating a beautiful escape, with a little more salt and a lot more soul.

These retreats are for women who have carried a lot, who are ready to put down the performance, and who like their self-care with salt, sunshine and a few shenanigans.

This is not a bootcamp. It is not a silent retreat. It is not about pretending to be calm, perfect or permanently grateful while secretly wondering when happy hour starts. Happy hour starts at sunset, obviously.

It is water, rest, good food, honest conversation, gentle workshops, a little adventure and the kind of space women often give everyone else before they give it to themselves.

It is water, rest, good food, honest conversation, gentle workshops, a little adventure and the kind of space women often give everyone else before they give it to themselves.