Hot Sauna, Cold Sea, Clear Mind

I’m all about immersion in the natural world as a key to health, perspective, and living right. Living on a sailboat is regular, near full-time, immersion. But when I settled ashore for the winter in West Cork I had to actively seek immersion, and for some reason I fixated on the idea of regularly immersing myself in the cold sea as a top ambition. I am not sure if this was my inner masochist, who I thought I had left behind, making a comeback. Or subliminal submission to the cult of Wim Wenders and other cold water evangelists. But it was a problem. Unlike the Caribbean, swimming here is a shock to the system. The water is cold (around 9C/48F in the winter, and 15C/60F at the height of summer). I can hack the summer temps. It is the winter temps that are brutal.

Still, lots of local swimmers keep swimming through the winter months, and don’t seem to suffer overly much. Indeed, they seem hale and healthy, and enthusiastic. So I decided that maybe I should try to immerse myself in the cold sea once a week. A good test of fortitude, and a proven benefit to well-being and mental health. The problem was that the water is just so effing cold I always found a good reason or excuse to do something else.

I resolved to accept my cowardice and try to do better in other realms of human endeavor, like cycling. And a few weeks ago, on a sunny day, I cycled past a beautiful beach called the Red Strand. Perched next to the beach was a barrel-shaped sauna. Going in and out of the sauna, and alternating the heat with swims in the sea, was a happy, laughing group of humans. Aha, I thought, maybe this is the formula that will get me into the winter ocean on a regular basis.

This past weekend, thankfully on another gloriously sunny day, I joined my friends Paddy and Tamsin for an hour session at the Red Strand sauna (it can hold up to 8, and you book online). I like saunas. They are hot. They feel good both during and after. I sat for about 20 minutes boosting my body temp as high as it could go without doing permanent damage, then exited. Like a newly hatched sea turtle I scurried as fast as I could toward the ocean, in the hopes of retaining some of the glorious heat within before taking the plunge.

I crossed about 150 meters of beach and started splashing through the shallow water. So far, so good. The water deepened gradually, and reached my waist. Okay, feeling it now. A wave tumbled toward me. I said a prayer, steeled myself, and dove into it. A vise of cold gripped my head. I surfaced, gasped with the shock of it, and may have uttered an expletive. I felt both my breath and my heartbeat accelerate sharply as I floated and let a few waves wash over me, assessing. The line between pain and pleasure blurred. My brain got confused. The cold was biting, but somehow also felt a tiny bit good. Then legit good. I waited until it started to feel a tiny bit bad and stood up. I waded ashore and headed back toward the sauna. It was February in Cork, and I was in a bathing suit on a beach. The air was cold but felt warm. The sun even warmer. As far as my body and senses were concerned February was suddenly July.

I got back in the sauna, and did two more rounds of high heat and swimming. I survived. I even liked it. I will do it again. After, I felt languid and relaxed. The feel of the cold sea and the embrace of the waves had washed through my body and into the deeper places that aren’t purely physical (things get mystical when the life-sustaining warmth in your core is fast ebbing into a frigid tide). I felt cleansed. Of course, I felt cleansed. I knew I would. Cold water swimming uncorks an endorphin gusher. I just needed the pre-heating of a sauna to get me there. Now I know.

The Vikings had a sauna culture, for health, cleansing and spiritual rituals. While it faded in modern times, I’ve read that saunas in Norway have made a big comeback. So maybe I will continue a sauna ritual through the summer, as Norway is where I plan to spend a few months aboard Laughing Gull. To get there, I plan to head up the West Coast of Ireland in late May, or early June, taking a few weeks to explore that wild coast. Then I plan to sail over the top of Ireland and spend a few weeks in the Scottish islands (Hebrides, Orkney, Shetland). From Shetland in early July, Laughing Gull will hope to fly north and east to Tromso, well inside the Arctic Circle, weather permitting. From there I will work south via the Lofoten Islands, the fjords, and the southwest coast of Norway, to the Oslo fjord. Finally, in early September I will sail south to Vindo Marin on the west coast of Sweden, where I will haul Laughing Gull for the winter.

It is an ambitious itinerary, and I am really looking forward to it. If any of you have ideas or insights regarding where I should stop, and places I shouldn’t miss, please put them in the comments. If I am lucky, it will all go smoothly. If I am very lucky, I will also find a sauna or two.

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