The San Jose Mercury News earlier this week published a profile of life aboard the HMS Carlskrona – A Swedish warship currently deployed off the coast of Somalia to help in the battle against the pirates there.
One of the facilities available for the crew to relax in their off-duty hours is the ship’s onboard sauna:
Taking a steam together is an essential way of getting to know someone in much of Scandinavia, said Mika Raunu, a sailor in the Finnish navy. It’s in the same tradition of Scandinavian egalitarianism that sees officers sharing rooms with lower-ranking sailors.
It also has led to a few cultural misunderstandings.
Lt. Cmdr. Carl Sjostrand told of a Swedish captain who invited a U.S. admiral to meet his senior officers after a formal ship’s dinner. The American was led down to the sauna in full dress uniform—only to end up shaking hands with a line of sweaty, smiling and naked Swedish sailors.
Like all facilities, the saunas are used by both men and women, and the Swedish military does not segregate living quarters or bathrooms.
After a good sauna, it’s always nice to cool down naturally, by relaxing and letting the breeze gently take the heat away from your body. Of course, since the sauna is best enjoyed with as little clothing as possible, if you’re enjoying the sauna during the day, you probably want a good sunscreen.
Many sunscreens available in the U.S. may be the equivalent of modern-day snake oil, plying customers with claims of broad-spectrum protection but not providing it, while exposing people to potentially hazardous chemicals that can penetrate the skin into the body. When only 8 percent of sunscreens rate high for safety and efficacy, it’s clear that consumers concerned about protecting themselves and their families are left with few good options.
The risk of Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, may be increased while wearing sunscreen, for some people.
High SPF products may be more harmful, suppressing sunburns, while allowing other skin damage to occur.
Sunscreen may inhibit the production of Vitamin D.
Vitamin A in sunscreen may speed the development of cancer.
Free radical damage from UV rays may be worse with sunscreen than it is on bare skin alone.
Hormone disruptors or Nanomaterials are present in most US sunscreen formulations.
European sunscreens are better than US sunscreens, because
The US FDA has lagged approving new compounds, and has spent 33 years developing a sunscreen safety policy.
The Environmental Working Group is a US Non-profit dedicated to educating the public about hidden toxic chemicals and working to change government policy that allow, promote or subsidize the use of these toxins.
Welcome to all of you arriving from SodaHead! We’re so grateful to the SodaHead team for giving us a SODASTAR today for what we thought was just a humble little poll.
Thanks for taking the time to click through. If you like what you see, why don’t you subscribe to our Feed or by Email? If you’re looking for a place to see if you can take the heat, why not search for a sauna near you? Better yet, if you know of one we don’t have listed, tell us about it.
For anyone wondering what SodaHead is, it’s the service that hosts our polls, like the one sitting in the left sidebar there. (If you haven’t already, take a minute to vote and share your opinion on this pressing issue.) Every day, they pick a poll for each of their categories and feature it as the daily “SODASTAR.” From the looks of it, we beat out Phone-Sex Working Moms, Fat Burning Underwear, and The Mom Who Had Her 5-Year Old Arrested. Tough competition indeed!
In my review of this morning’s Sauna news, I happened upon a review of The Sauna Cookbook: Food for Body and Soul posted on The Culinary Cellar blog. This cookbook, written by Tuula Kaitilia and Edey Saarinen has 130 recipes with color photos and measurements in English and Metric Units.
So what does the sauna have to do with a cookbook , you ask? It is known that sauna bathing depletes the body of fluids and electrolytes, thus making it necessary to replenish them with a refreshing drink and salty snack. The sauna and the ensuing drink and treats together provide food for the body and soul, hence the title of the cookbook. The Finns will cook food inside the sauna as it heats up. Some of the popular items include sausages and fish. Sausages are wrapped in foil and placed directly on the sauna rocks. Others like to have sandwiches or salted salmon ready to eat inside their homes after relaxing in the sauna. The cookbook has chapters on all the traditional sauna foods, along with wonderful bread recipes, desserts, beverages, sauces and condiments, and even Christmas foods. Before all the recipes, the first chapter explains the culture of the sauna itself in Finnish life, which is fascinating. It has been a ritual in Finland for thousands of years, and is an integral part of entertaining and family life. People will build their sauna before they even build the home alongside it.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the sauna used for cooking. At Therme Erding near Munich, they have their “Bakery Sauna” where the sauna stove is used as an oven to bake bread while you’re enjoying the heat.
Do you like your saunas hot? Really friggin’ hot? Then maybe you should consider entering the Sauna World Championships. They’ve been held in Heinloa Finland, a two hour bus ride from Helsinki, every August since 1999.
If you can get yourself to Finland this August 5-7, get a note from your doctor, and pay the € 50 entrance fee, you can add to the 137 men and 20 women from 22 countries who competed in 2008.
How hot is it? It’s 110°C / 230°F in there. If that isn’t hot enough, twice a minute an automatic shower dumps a half liter of water on the rocks of these specially constructed saunas. There’s no high-tech clothing that helps here: The rules allow the competitors to wear only a swimsuit, with strict regulations on the maximum size. The winners have to endure up to 4 qualifying rounds, each requiring the contestants to outlast their other competitors in the heat, taking from 4 to 13 minutes. The 2008 final took 17 minutes to decide the men’s winner.
If you can’t get an idea of what this feels like, American Sports journalist Rick Reilly competed in the 2007 World Sauna Championships, and describes his experience in his new book, Sports from Hell: My Search for the World’s Dumbest Competition. There is an excerpt from it on ESPN.com. In it he describes his experience:
We went in, and it was so instantly, shockingly, insanely hot, my brain just stopped working. It was like walking into a bonfire and pulling up a chair in the middle of it. My strategy was to go in and keep time by the 30-second water splashes, but that plan was scrapped approximately seven seconds in. Thinking literally hurt. I tried to stare at the rocks and not blink, because blinking hurt. I tried to take very few breaths, because breathing hurt. I was sure flames were coming out of my mouth. My back seemed to have ignited. I was convinced my ears were literally on fire, but if I moved even slightly, they hurt more. I tried sitting up higher, but it was even hotter. I tried crouching down more, but then I was nearer to the unforgiving rocks. Then came the hideous, cruel, pitiless splashes of water, each one lasting three seconds. I was just about to bolt into the fresh air when — miraculously — the tall, skinny guy next to me ran out. Amazing! I wasn’t last! I had no idea how much time had elapsed — four minutes? Six? I promised myself: When I get to the point where I can no longer stand it, I’ll count 60 seconds and go.
Four seconds later, I decided I could no longer stand it.
So I started counting. One, two, three … It was the longest minute of my life. At 60 I went barreling out. Watching other heats, I’d wondered why even losers came out grinning and raising their hands in victory, but now I knew. The cool air was so beautiful, so redeeming, so life giving. You could French-kiss Osama bin Laden.
I looked at the clock. 3:10? That was it? When did the first guy bolt? “2:40,” I was told. Which meant I’d counted my 60 seconds in 30.
If you just want to watch the proceedings, admission costs € 15 each day.
A site that showed up on my radar a few weeks ago is Hotsprung, subtitled “Hot Water and How to Get Into It.”
Most interesting is the post on the Dogo Onsen in Japan. According to Hotsprung, it was the inspiration for the bath house in the excellent movie Spirited Away(which probably deserves its own post here).
Hotsprung also has a very informative post on the Onsen, a style of Japanese Bath, plus some first-hand reviews of several spas in the Seattle and Vancouver area.
We’ve added some new features over the weekend to make Saunascape more social! You can now comment on saunas in our Find-A-Sauna database you’ve visited and give them a star rating!
Commenting is done on the Disqus system. To make leaving a comment as easy as possible, you can log in through your Facebook, Yahoo, OpenId or Twitter accounts. Please give it a spin if you’ve got a favorite sauna that we’ve listed here.
We’ve also added star rankings for all the saunas. These don’t require you to be logged in at all. Click on the stars and your ratings will magically appear.
In my review of this morning’s Sauna news, I happened upon a review of 
. There is an excerpt from it on 
(which probably deserves its own post here).
Entries (RSS)