Maggie Guneyogullari used sea swimming to heal after suffering devastating family bereavements. And when she discovered that the combination of heat and cold therapy could boost her physical and mental well-being further, she decided to start her own beachside sauna to help others. She talks to Alison Cowie…
Maggie Guneyogullari worked in social research for North Tyneside local authority before leaving to start a family. After this, she helped her husband run his business while looking after their three children.
Then one day tragedy struck when her beloved sister died suddenly. Just one year later, her mum also died.
Maggie reflects: “My sister was such a gorgeous, amazing person who went to sleep one night and never woke up. We couldn’t get our heads around it. There was so much grief and trauma that when my mum then died, I’m convinced it was of a broken heart.”
The deaths of her sister and mum months apart caused Maggie to sink into a difficult place.
“The whole bottom of my world fell out and I was in a really dark place,” she says. “It took all my strength to put one foot in front of the other. All I could do was get up, take the children to school and then come home and collapse.”
Friends rallied but nothing seemed to lift Maggie. Then a friend suggested going for a swim.
Maggie reluctantly agreed and suggested they meet at the City Baths. It was then she realised her friend meant a swim in the North Sea. This was her first introduction to cold water swimming.
Maggie wasn’t sure she could wade into the freezing water but agreed to go with her friend to the local beach – King Edward’s Bay in Tynemouth.
She describes: “I sat and watched for a bit. There were a few groups going into the sea. They looked so cold but everyone was coming out with joy on their faces.”
Maggie decided to give it a go but the freezing water quickly took hold and she retreated back to land. The brief experience, however, had set her on a transformative path.
“I told myself that if other people could do it, then I could do it too,” she explains.
Maggie started visiting King Edward’s Bay every day. Each time she spent a little longer among the waves. Before she knew it, she began to feel better but didn’t understand why.
Maggie did some research and found out about the benefits cold water therapy could have on a person’s physical and mental well-being.
“I discovered that by entering the cold water every day, I was putting my body under such stress that I had to focus on my breathing. By repeatedly doing it, I was being forced into the present, and leaving my brain to have a rest – it was allowing me the space I needed to heal.”
Maggie describes her sea dips as “saving her life” as she was hit with yet another brutal blow when her beloved dad also died unexpectedly.
“The consistent sea dipping and cold water therapy once again supported me through my grief,” she says.
Maggie signed up for The Chatter Challenge – a national winter swim challenge – to keep her motivated to enter the bracing water time after time as a way of coping with bereavement.
Then someone asked her if she’d watched a television programme where local actor Robson Green had tried a beach sauna. Intrigued, she sought it out and decided she’d like to try it. Around the same time another beach sauna had started up on Londgsands beach in Tynemouth called Earthbond, which Maggie went to visit and was instantly sold.
After more research she found out about the added benefits of combining cold with heat therapy.
While most people would have settled for regular visits to their local beach sauna, this was not enough for Maggie whose altruistic nature drove her to establish a beach sauna of her own.
“I knew the benefits of heat and cold therapy. I felt it in my body. My central nervous system had reset and it excited me to be able to deliver the same experience to others,” she explains.
There was only one place Maggie wanted to start her beach sauna – King Edward’s Bay.
“The location was so important to me. I had a connection there. A part of me will always be in that water. I feel rooted in its sand and sea.”
Maggie found the only UK’s supplier of portable sauna kits with traditional Finnish log burning stoves, and invested in two of their tents seating six people each.
She also contacted her local authority that advised her on the documentation she needed to start her beachside sauna, which she named ‘Steam and Salt’.
“The council was really supportive,” Maggie reflects. “They wanted to know all about my plans and pointed me in the right direction as to what insurance I needed and the boxes I needed to tick.”
Maggie worked with a business owner friend, known as The Cullercoats Fish Lass, who helped design Steam and Salt’s logo and develop the ‘ultimate destination for self-care’ ethos behind the brand.
She also recruited a local digital designer to create a website, which featured an intuitive booking system for people to buy hour sessions on Friday, Saturday or Sunday mornings. During that time, people could move between the sauna and the sea (or outdoors) as many times as they liked, while indulging in a home-made Himalayan salt scrub to help detox the skin.
With everything in place, the next step was to attract customers to Steam and Salt. Maggie was told social media would be the best way to do this.
“It was something I felt a bit uncomfortable with at first,” Maggie admits. “I’m of that generation for which social media wasn’t a natural thing. Younger people are totally ofay with it but it was something I needed to learn.”
Maggie again sought the help of The Cullercoats Fish Lass who helped her to set up a dedicated Facebook page. Maggie began tagging all her family and friends, which included many ardent sea swimmers, who began tagging their friends too.
Word soon spread.
“The first two or three months were slow-ish but from then, interest grew and grew. Word of mouth is such a powerful tool,” Maggie reveals.
Steam and Salt celebrated its first anniversary in February and has become hugely popular with sessions booking out weeks in advance.
It’s an early start for Maggie and her husband who need to get up at 4am to transport the tents and equipment down to King Edward’s Bay, pitch them and get the traditional wood-burning stoves to temperature before the first customers arrive at 7am (7.30am on a Sunday).
“Sometimes you’re really challenged by high tides and enormous swells,” Maggie adds. “Very occasionally, this has meant we’ve had to cancel but we’re lucky that King Edward’s Bay is quite sheltered from the wind.”
Maggie says the early starts and hard graft are worth it to be able to share the rejuvenating benefits of heat and cold therapy with others.
“The business is growing and its rewarding not only from a business growth perspective but from seeing first-hand the benefits everyone gets from experiencing it,” she says.
“We run sessions at the weekend until 1pm and then we have to pack everything back up. “They’re long days but running the sauna is extremely rewarding. It makes me feel wonderful and I feel humbled and very grateful to be able to do it.”
Maggie has also seen a change in customer demographics over the past 12 months.
“At the start, it was mainly family and friends who wanted to support me. But that’s changed as word has spread.
“We often get younger people come to the earlier sessions; those in their 20s and 30s who are more focused on being fit and healthy.
“Yes, we get people who are regular sea swimmers and lots of sports people who use the sauna for their post workout recovery, but then there are all the people in between.
“They come in couples or with groups of friends, and we get customers coming on their own, too.”
Maggie continues: “When people first come, they can be a bit nervous. They’ll dip their toe in the sea and then get in a sauna. But by round two, they’re exuding happiness. They get it, they feel the benefits and they go away feeling wonderful.”
Due to the ever-increasing demand, Maggie has recently started holding her Steam and Salt saunas on Wednesday and Thursday mornings – and the set-up is also available for one-off hires.
But Maggie says she has no intention of starting beach saunas in other locations as she’s too attached to King Edward’s Bay – a place that means so much to her and whose beauty can still take her breath away, as she explains:
“Last Sunday, I was on the beach extra early as a family had asked if I could fit them in because their daughter was moving to America.
“I’d put up a tent for them and was setting up the other one when I turned around to see the most beautiful bloodred sunrise I’d ever seen.
“I shouted to my friend, who was helping me that day, to get the family out of the tent. I didn’t want them to miss it. When they saw it, they were in tears.
“I’ve seen many sunrises at King Edward’s Bay but I’ll never forget the one that morning.”
For more information visit www.steamandsalt.co.uk
