Forty swimmers and counting
We took stock of our regulars this spring. What the numbers say about who uses the sauna, and what keeps them coming back to the bay.
We have been watching the numbers quietly. Over the winter, forty different people used the sauna at least once a week, every week. Ages ranged from nineteen to seventy-three. Some came alone, some in pairs, a handful in groups that had clearly been swimming together for years before we built the thing.
What unites them is harder to pin down than a demographic. They are not especially competitive. They are not chasing fitness metrics. What they share is a tolerance for discomfort that spills over into a general ease with being cold, wet, and outside when no reasonable person would be.
We asked a few of them why the bay instead of a pool, a gym, a sensible indoor activity. The answers were variations on the same thing: the bay does not care what you look like or how fast you swim. It just asks you to show up.