AUSTRALIA - Agel's Diamond Leadership Retreat

I was able to travel to Sydney, Australia with Jeff and his work for a retreat. All the top leaders came for the retreat. What an awesome experience! I had never been there before and I loved it. Jeff and my brother Glen flew out ahead of time for some meetings and so my sister in law, Kathy, and I flew out together.
I walked into my hotel room (which was about 1 block away from the harbor) and had a perfect view of the Sydney Opera house and the bridge.

We divided up into teams and went sailing in the Darling Harbor. My brother Glen and his wife Kathy's team took first. We took 3rd place but it was still 2 great hours on the water. Each boat had a skipper but we were the crew. We did all the running of the sails. It was the first time that both Jeff and I had been sailing.

We spent 4 days in Sydney. We then flew to Hamilton Island and took a yatch to Haymen Island and spent 6 days there. Haymen is only 6 miles in diameter and only about 500 people live on the island. And all of the residents work at the one and only resort on the whole island, which is where we stayed. There aren't really any cars on the island. Just golf carts. We had a blast there.

The pool there is the 2nd largest pool in the world. It is 7 times an olympic size pool. And just beyond the pool in the ocean.

We had great dinner parties, took kayaks and little sail boats out into the water and played football on the beach. We arrived there at the end of a cyclone, so we got a little rain everyday but it was still hot and humid. Actually, without the rain, it would have been too hot and the sun would have been unbearable.

One of the days, we took a boat WAY out, like a 2 hour boat ride into the ocean right to the Great Barrier Reef and we went scuba diving.....well, not me, I snorkeled. Amazing! I have snorkeled in a lot a places and I have never seen anything like this.

The water was such a pretty color and the fish and coral were spectacular.

There were also cockatoo's ALL OVER! They would fly into the hotel rooms and steal stuff if you left the balcony doors open. One flew in a stole a man's wallet. This cockatoo was on my balcony railing.

This parrot was just outside the side balcony of my hotel room in a tree. It was so pretty. I have never seen birds like this outside of a zoo.

There were also bats! These bats were HUGE! The first time I saw one flying I thought that it was a crow. Scary! Next year the retreat is going to be in Maui. Haymen was amazing but thankfully in Maui, there will be no bats like this!