If you happen to be in the pool in the morning and hear laughter coming from the sauna, you can thank the Sauna Boys. Six men. Endless banter. Pure camaraderie.

To hear Richard Taylor—the original Sauna Boy—tell it, the connection all started with water aerobics. “None of us are locals,” Richard said, “we all came together back when water aerobics was predominantly women. I recruited other men to join the water class when I was working out in the gym. Some of us started hanging out afterward in the sauna. Then we’d have coffee.” From there, the legendary group was born.

The connection made in the water aerobics class and the sauna extends far beyond the YMCA’s doors. “The saunas went pretty good. We all seemed to get along,” Jim Jellison shared. “Winter came along and we started doing dinners at each other’s homes to play board games and be in community.” When the YMCA held its annual Polar Plunge, Jim was happy to sponsor his friends for the Jan. 1 cold water plunge, but wanted no part of the icy immersion. Supported by the Sauna Boys, Jim took the plunge and now he’s an avid cold-water plunger with the Little Dippers out of Hendricks Head in Southport. He dips an average of three times weekly. Sal, too. You’ll often hear their laughter over the frigid, lapping waves.

“We’re always there for each other,” Richard said, “it’s reassuring. We look out for each other.” And when Jim Jellison got it in his head to grow giant pumpkins in his field—how hard can it be?—he enlisted the help of the Sauna Boys to deliver his harvest to Boothbay Region Elementary School, the YMCA and the property of a local artist friend. “All these giant pumpkins that grew up together would be able to see each other,” Jim said with a rich, hardy laugh, “they really did become part of my family.” Just like the Sauna Boys who now consider each other the closest of friends: an unexpected family of community in the Boothbay area.

If you saw the giant pumpkin named “Penelope Poppy” outside the Boothbay Region Elementary School, you’ll remember its gorgeous carroty hue. The color of Jim’s harvest was bright and bold, mirroring the energy Jim exudes. “I heard stories of kids hugging the pumpkin on their way into school or if they had a bad day. That was something,” Jim shared. It served as inspiration. Richard has plans to “hit the group up to find a project that we can do to help the community—participate as a group to become more involved, community-wise.”

The group’s energy is infectious. Sal Matari—the baby of the group—shared how the Sauna Boys aren’t “the only people in the sauna. Maybe there’s one or two other people who join us. People from the therapy pool who will hear us in there and be curious about the fun we’re having. There were fourteen people in the sauna today.” That number doesn’t feel like an accident when you consider the enthusiastic vigor the Sauna Boys bring to every conversation. “I don’t know how I got inducted into it,” said Sal, “but I’m happy they let me in. Nineteen minutes in the sauna and friends for life.” Sal acknowledges that other members retreat to the sauna to meditate and find calm and might find their banter disrupting. “Once in a while we get a complaint that we’re too loud,” Sal admits. “But it’s all in the spirit of finding joy with other people. We’re all up there in our ages. We want to enjoy life.”

Jim Jellison, Richard Taylor, Curt Crosby, Andy Cozzi, Don Earle, and Sal Matari may have arrived at the Boothbay YMCA from different life experiences, but they all agree on one thing: “Whatever you say in the sauna, stays in the sauna.” They’ll each joke about this separately, their laughter deep and full, but this code speaks to community, to finding a home in one another. In joy.