The hottest reservation in the Bay Area is floating in the Sausalito marina.

All week my husband’s been asking me: “Are you going to jump in the bay?”

Every time I give him that look, the sheepish one, the one that means I’m still deciding. I want to jump in, I really do, but with the water temperature around 55 degrees Fahrenheit, I’m still on the fence—or, in this case, the dock.

Fjord, the sauna with sweeping views of Tiburon, Angel Island, and the San Francisco skyline in the distance, is in only its fourth week at the Sausalito marina. But the minimalist Nordic-style wellness center has proven so popular, they’re already booked nearly solid “for months,” says co-founder Alex Yenni.

Fjord is, literally, the hottest reservation in the entire Bay Area.

Yenni’s chill is infectious. He greets us at the kiosk on the harbor’s edge, so comfortable in his own skin that the brisk waterside breeze seems to barely touch him. He’s not just Fjord’s co-founder; he’s a regular customer.

Looking through the sauna's picture window(Alex Farnum)

We walk down a pier tied with sailboats and small craft to the floating dock at its end. Despite its light footprint, it’s taken Yenni and co-founder Gabe Turner two years to navigate the bureaucracy of eight different state and local agencies just to open these two small saunas and a wooden deck. A slatted privacy screen curves in a half-moon around potted plants, a bench, and an outdoor shower at each; metal ladders drop ten feet below the soft current. Orange buoys demarcate the plunge zone, a small slice of the Bay protected from the traffic coming in and out of the marina.

Each of the twin saunas has benches on two levels that can accommodate up to six people at a time, and a picture window that spans the entire exterior wall. A large stone heater chugs away in the corner, warming the space to a target 190 degrees Fahrenheit—there’s a ladle for scooping water onto them to produce löyly (steam). Fjord has only a few requirements: wear a bathing suit, sit on a towel (bring your own or buy one there), don’t swim past the buoys, and rinse off the saltwater before reentering the sauna.

The floating bathhouse next door has several changing rooms and bins to hold the clothes you shed; you can refill your bottle from the potable water faucet right outside. How long you should stay in the sauna or how many rounds of hot-and-cold are optimal for triggering your parasympathetic nervous system’s rest-and-digest mode, Yenni doesn’t say—he’s not there to tell you what’s best for your individual needs. Jumping in the bay, though, he assures us, is incredible.

Inside one of the twin saunas(Alex Farnum)

Yenni, of course, is right. Ten minutes in the sauna is all it takes for those 55-degree waters to vanish a week of uncertainty.

And so it begins: lying back and sweating in the sauna, gaze trained on the picture window until it’s so hot I think my heart might explode, then hurling myself into the water and bobbing around until my toes start to bite from the cold. A quick rinse, a slug of water, and then do it all over again. The water is salty enough to sting your eyes, but this area, Richardson Bay, is actually quite pristine, flushed out by the tides and monitored weekly for contamination from April through October.

Ninety minutes later, we emerge from the bathhouse reclothed, with rubbery legs and a feeling of calm that lasts into the day. There’s something undeniably special about transplanting this tradition from a spa setting to the interface between the built and natural environment. That’s exactly what Alex Yenni was betting on all those months digging through the red tape.

Fjord is a harbinger, one he hopes will “unlock a new era of waterfront recreation on the Bay,” democratizing access to the marina for everyone, not just those who own a boat.

With the Nordic Cycle coursing through my blood and bones, I can’t help but wish for the same.

Make it an Overnight in Sausalito

The stunning view from The Inn Above Tide

(Felipe Passalacqua)

Don’t harsh your post-Fjord mellow by dodging tourists on the ferry or traffic on the freeway. Sausalito is just too beautiful not to spend the night.

Where to Stay: The Inn Above Tide

The Inn Above Tide has a location as stunning as Fjord itself. Perched just above the water in downtown Sausalito, the boutique hotel’s 31 rooms and suites are luxuriously plush, with a color palette of blues and grays meant to bring the outside in. Almost every room is fitted with a balcony from which you can spot seals and pelicans in the morning and bathe in the gentle light of San Francisco at night. (If you’ve got cash to burn, do not miss the mind-blowing City Lights Suite, which has a full-size deck with a teak dining table, loungers, and a zen garden.) Most rooms and suites also have fireplaces and soaking tubs, and all come stocked with plush robes, custom linens, and binoculars for wildlife spotting. The hotel sets out a complimentary two-hour wine-and-cheese reception every evening and a continental buffet breakfast every morning, both of which you can request to have brought to your room when you have trouble tearing yourself away from the view. // 30 El Portal (Sausalito), innabovetide.com

Where to Eat: Sushi Ran

For almost 40 years, Sushi Ran has been carving delicate slices of fish from local and carefully sourced global waters. It’s a full-service Japanese restaurant, with hot and cold dishes like noodles and wagyu beef, rolls, and an extensive list of sakes and higher-proof cocktails. But Sushi Ran is known best for its sashimi and nigiri, the kind of pristine cuts they’ve been dependably bringing to the Bay Area since the late 1980s. The best route here is to let the chef choose your adventure with Nigiri Mori, an 11-bite journey through the freshest catch of the day, paired with a three-glass sake flight. If you’ve got an appetite, though, start with the crab cakes—lightly breaded baseballs of lump crab on a bed of fried Brussels sprouts, served with a tangy plum sauce—and end with the delightful toffee cake, a lighter take on the British pudding that comes with a scoop of crisp, fresh ginger ice cream. Plan ahead to reserve the 13-course omakase experience at the sushi bar instead. // 107 Caledonia St. (Sausalito), sushiran.com