We skim across the Baltic Sea as a menace of storm clouds gathers overhead. Our skipper Kami opens the throttle as she turns the speedboat into the Finnish archipelago, face on to the stiffening breeze.
‘There it is,’ she shouts, and points to a teardrop of land, forested by pine and birch. On the shoreline I see a group of half-naked women, holding hands as they advance into the waves. When the chilly water hits their calves, their screams could split the sturdiest skull. Oh my God. What fresh hell lies ahead?
Welcome to SuperShe Island, an 8.5-acre luxury retreat in the Gulf of Finland, where the smoothies are made of locally foraged berries and where men are banned — be they smooth, foraged or otherwise.
On the world’s first all-female island, alcohol, cigarettes and sugar are also forbidden, in a purpose-built haven where alpha women gather in Nordic cabins to empower themselves through wellness, sisterhood and coconut yoghurt. Within hours of arriving on SuperShe, I have eaten a plate of violently coloured vegetables, downward dogged in the yoga yurt and attended a motivational talk in which we had to tell everyone three things about ourselves. Taken by surprise, I blurt that I am brave, honest and kind — and even I know at least one of those isn’t true.
Jan Moir (pictured) shared her experience of visiting SuperShe, the world’s first all-female island in the Gulf of Finland. The island forbids men, alcohol, cigarettes and sugar
Our timetables are filled with saunas, kayaking, exercise classes, massages, meditations and something called shinrin-yoku forest bathing. What the heck is that? ‘Walking in the wood,’ shrugs Cooper from Chicago, a corporate lawyer who is finding it difficult to connect with her inner tree elf.
‘You’re supposed to talk to butterflies and sh*t like that.’ As it costs around £3,500 a week to stay here, SuperShes might be forgiven for expecting the butterflies to talk back — or compliment them on their Lululemon leggings at the very least.
SuperShe Island is the pet project of German-American businesswoman Kristina Roth, a computer scientist who made millions when she sold her Seattle-based consulting business in 2016.
That same year, she bought this island (then called Fjardskar) to be the headquarters of her 6,000-strong SuperShe female network — a society of powerful women globally linked through Facebook and Instagram.
‘Women need to spend time with other women,’ she writes on her website. ‘Being on vacation with men can cause women to become sidetracked, whether it’s to put on a swipe of lipstick or grab for a cover-up.
‘We want SuperShe Island to be rejuvenating and a safe space where women can reinvent themselves and their desires. A place where you can recalibrate without distractions.’
The glamorous Kristina won’t say how much she paid for the island (probably around £350,000-ish), nor how old she is (probably around 40-ish), but she ordered some of the forest to be razed to accommodate her vision.
She cuts down trees, she wears high heels — but, ironically, this stronghold of independent feminism was her Finnish fiancé’s idea. His parents own one of the nearby islands — popular as summer homes for wealthy Finns — and he suggested she should buy it when plans for a similar retreat on Turks & Caicos fell through.
Jan (pictured) claims her stay on the island felt like a social experiment and that some of the women who visited were discontent with the value for money by the end of their stay
Men — boo! — were brought in to build four cabins that accommodate up to ten SuperShes, plus a brand-new wooden jetty and lots of teak decking. Gravel paths were laid and two barges full of sand were shipped in to create an artificial beach.
There is a pod of kayaks, a giant firepit where Camilla the chef barbecues salmon and local lamb for SuperShe suppers; there are huge ‘beach puff’ cushions that float on the water for superior SuperShe sunbathing, and about a dozen hammock cocoons called Dreamers (£360 each) which hang among the pine trees.
When the retreat opened in June this year, Kristina personally vetted prospective guests by interviewing them via Skype. They had to have the ‘right vibe’, whatever that means, although now they just send in an audition tape, as if they were on The X Factor.
SuperShe legend claims that more than 7,000 women applied for this year’s 140 places, but can that really be true? There is a big difference between expressing an interest and actually laying out the hard cash. And it takes a special kind of woman to travel to this remote location, share a cabin with a stranger and then throw herself into the Baltic Sea, probably in that order.
However, my SuperShe crew, all in their 30s and 40s, are lovely, even if the shinrin-yoku is not helping Cooper with her anger issues.
‘My God. My rage. If I could boil it into a bullet and fire it at anyone who disrespects me, I would,’ she roars. Yet she has a dazzling all-American smile, and when she takes a bite of the flaxseed breakfast bread, her teeth leave a perfect crescent imprint.
Noelle is a banker from London who only feels free when she runs. ‘I feel energised and happy being here,’ she says. ‘But mostly that is because it’s great being away from my kids.’
Others include Maris from Paris, who pulled a muscle in one of her powerful calves getting out of her SuperShe kayak; Orianne from Stockholm, who is a woman on the verge of leading an uprising against the imbecility of the on-island motivational talks, and Vali from Helsinki, who really needs an Aperol Spritz, although there isn’t one to be had for about a hundred miles.
Kristina Roth (pictured) bought the island in 2016 for around £350,000 after her fiance had the idea of a purpose-built haven for alpha women
At night we sleep in cabins with cowhides on the floor and 1,000-thread-count sheets on the beds, which feel like floating in a meringue of whipped silk.
We slather SuperShe blueberry body butter onto our aching muscles, slip under our SuperShe monogrammed quilts and dream of being even better SuperShes the next morning.
To assist us, there are five on-island staff members, who live tucked among the trees in what look like individual garden sheds, fitted with picture windows.
Camilla grows her own herbs and edible flowers outside the kitchen and spends hours cramming vegetables into a blender to turn them into nutritious pulps and soups to keep the SuperShes operating at peak performance.
As if we were a herd of vitamin-deficient moose, she also makes us eat a vast amount of berries, including cranberries, lingonberries, cloudberries and the far superior Finnish blueberry, yum.
One woman was thrown off the island for smuggling in champagne and cigarettes and leading everyone astray
Captain Kami does everything from ferrying passengers to delivering logs to the boat-shaped sauna, which looks something Frodo from Middle Earth might sweat in, were he allowed. Did I mention that men are superfluous to needs here? Well, almost.
When the storm gets really wild one day, Kami has to hire a man to bring a larger boat to take some guests to the mainland. Well, that’s not very SuperShe, is it? ‘We need the boat, not the man,’ she says.
Staff and guests eat together every day, and over a lunch of pea soup garnished with flowers, Kami tells me how she worked on a New Zealand farm last year, helping to deliver 250 calves in four weeks.
She grew to love her charges. ‘Cows are amazing,’ she says. ‘There is always the same cow who will come to the front of the queue, another cow who always wants her ear scratched, one cow who wants all the attention and needs to be milked first.’ Surely Kami could never have imagined, in her wildest dreams, how this remote agricultural experience would prove so useful, so quickly.
Finland’s Ombudsman was concerned that SuperShe (pictured) could violate gender equality laws because of its women-only concept
For you might not be surprised to hear that it has not all been plain sailing on this island paradise. First, Kristina had to battle with Finland’s Ombudsman for Equality, who investigated claims that her women-only concept violated gender equality laws.
‘I don’t understand how a few females on an island present a threat to the lives of any males. Everyone needs to grow up,’ she said, shortly before she won her case.
Over the summer, one woman was thrown off the island for smuggling in champagne and cigarettes and leading everyone astray. Some who have been disruptive influences have been asked to leave.
Still, there are some genuine grievances from SuperShes who have been promised a five-star, Goop-tastic experience — only to be confronted on SuperShe Island with Ikea bath mats, no napkins and too few seats at mealtimes.
Instead of farm-to-table dining, I notice it is quite often freezer-to-table, and guests who expected motivational talks by world-class speakers are taken aback when ‘experts’ are Skyped in from around the globe.
One night we gather for someone called Jennifer Green who is webcamming in from her kitchen in Los Angeles, complete with sink and taps behind her. ‘Do you see a sign that says “Break The Ice”?’ she keeps shouting, checking that her presentation is working, as the connection flickers in the storm.
Jan revealed the island has plans to erect glamping tents next year to accommodate more guests despite already feeling crowded
She urges us to ‘recontextualise from a human perspective’ and talks about how nursing her ill father before he died turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
‘The new age definition of banal,’ someone mutters.
‘The one dark moment in her perfect life!’ says Orianne. ‘I would have given anything for a month with my father.’
Later, as the storm rages on, we walk through the pine cones and wild mushrooms that carpet the woods towards the sauna. We sit inside and talk about everything from putting coconut oil on your teeth to Hyacinth Bucket, who is hugely popular in Finland. ‘Very nautical!’ cries Vali.
We don’t miss men and we never speak about them, but we do wonder about the future of SuperShe Island. ‘The financials just don’t make any sense,’ says Maris.
Next year, there are plans to erect glamping tents to accommodate more SuperShes. However, the tiny island — it takes five minutes to walk from one end to the other — already feels crowded with only a dozen or so of us.
The next day, a new dawn. The morning sky is streaked with pink, sunlight turns the trees gold and the glorious air is tinged with an Arctic crispness. The SuperShes gather for coffee and more berries at 7.30am and, as always, the conversation level roars from nought to deafening in seconds.
The bathrooms throughout SuperShe are equipped with Norwegian eco-friendly incineration toilets that burn everything to ashes
To escape the hubbub, I take a stroll across this pretty, eco-friendly island, which uses solar power for energy and filters water from the sea, then filters it back again after use.
There are eco products in the bathrooms, which are equipped with Norwegian eco-friendly incineration toilets. These burn everything to ashes.
Sometimes, on SuperShe Island, there is a pleasing whiff of smokiness in the air. Ah, barbecue tonight, you think. And then you think, oh, maybe not. The loos produce only one teacup of ash for four people over a week, and it is then used as garden fertiliser. After four days here, I like to think I have done my bit for the rosy bloom of Camilla’s flowers.
On our last day we are given SuperShe notebooks in which we are supposed to write what we are grateful for and what great things have happened to us here. Many of these worldly, sophisticated women look aghast at the idea,
SuperShe Island might be a noble concept, but at the end it feels like we have taken part in a social experiment; one that hasn’t quite worked — Big Sister instead of Big Brother. Kristina Roth may have a heart of gold, but my experience of female networking societies is that they benefit the handful of powerful women at the top and hardly anyone in the lower ranks — and nothing that happened here changed that.
Kristina Roth (pictured) has received global attention for her project although it hasn’t made her any money
This project and its first three-month season has certainly attracted global attention, acres of glamorous Instagram coverage and got Roth’s name out there, even if she hasn’t made any money.
The question is, how long can such high-minded generosity in the spirit of sisterhood last? Will there even be a SuperShe Island next year — or will it have vanished back into the freezing mist, like Brigadoon?
The end, when it comes, is rather anti-climactic. My SuperShes don’t even get the branded sweatshirts they expected and there is gentle discontent among those who have paid full price for a week here. ‘The thing is, we are not beginners in going to retreats,’ says Maris. ‘There is a big disconnect with the way this was branded and the reality. I am not angry, just disappointed.’
‘I don’t think it was value for money,’ says Noelle.
Soon we are skimming back across the slate-grey Baltic Sea, Captain Kami at the wheel. As we reach the mainland, an elderly Finnish fisherman appears, his wellies at half mast, a tattered cap on his grizzled curls. He is the first male many of us have seen for more than a week.
‘And right now,’ cries Noelle, ‘he is looking pretty hot to me!’
Supersheisland.com. Names of guests have been changed to protect their identity.