100710 New Crew

 

A new group of voluntary workers came to Märket today for the next week. It is a lot of 7 women and 3 men – all ready to do anything for Märket. This week we will introduce in this blog the workers beside the lighthouse and the restoration works.

Our forewoman is Aino. She is originally from very Northern Lapland but lives in Helsinki with her man and dog Elli: both of them are with her on Märket too.

We all are first timers on Märket – Aino too. She has however visited many lighthouses in Finland. She has been a member of the Lighthouse Society for 6 years and visited e.g. Tankar, Norrskär, Sälgrund, “Miss” Yttergrund, Bengtskär – of course – and some others. She has also visited a lot of lighthouses in Estonia when participating trips to Northern Estonian lighthouses organized by the Finnish and Estonian lighthouse societies. She told that the lighthouses are different there.

Most of them were in tragic condition but the restoration work had started already. A funny incident happened on the lighthouse of Mohni as the lighthouse guard had no keys nor entrance to the lighthouse.

Aino’s plan for the coming week is: work, work and hard work. The head of construction works – who is not here this week – left us a long list of works to do. In addition to them she hopes we could do even more – cleaning etc. Aino thinks that the fact that most of the participants are female is not a problem. Women of today are – if not wiser than the men in everyway – at least capable of many different technical and construction works. And the men can also do cooking which – in fact – is one of the most important duties here!

Today was sunny in the morning but turned into a rather windy day. Thus we had only two visitors: the young Asmala couple from Pori. The guide from last week’s group, Selja gave them – and us – a throrough guided tour to the island. From tomorrow on we have to do the guidening ourselves.

The island is also famous for its cinnamon bunnies which we started to bake today too with a huge succes – at least the bunnies were huge!

Aino, Sirpa, Leena, Tuula, Saija, Klaus, Johanna, Lotta, Juho, Tuomas, Kirsti, Ari ja Elli

 

110710 Exciting Day

 

Sunday, the second day for our group and and a very exiting one. A French television group came to visit us and Sirpa had to make her first guidening to them.

Sirpa is in charge of the guided tours and the connections during this week’s camp. She has been a member of the Lighthouse Society only for a few months. She has sailed the seas all her adult years and read all the Mooming books too. She heard about the Society from her friends and her longtime dream has been to visit lighthouses. Taking part in this work camp is for her a good way to make that dream come true. So far has Sirpa had very positive experiences. She thinks that the Finnish tradition of voluntary work – talkoohenki- is well materialized here. And in a good humour too. The buildings of Märket were in a much better condition than Sirpa had thought beforehand – but of course there is still a lot to do.

Sirpa works as a civil servant and her days are filled with meetings in Finland and in the EU. She travels frequently – most often to Brussels, where you can find a harbour but not a lighthouse. Working outdoors on this beautiful island is a good way for her to relax.

The members of the French television group were Didier Regnier and Frederic Fauré. They spend many hours on the island shooting the splendid scenery and the hard working volunteers. Didier Regnier is well known for his adventure and travel documentaries. This was his third trip to Finland. The group stays several days on Aland and the documentary will be seen in France next March. Didier was surprised to learn that Märket is the smallest island on earth which is divided between two states.

Beside this exciting visit also work was done as any other day. Wood was chopped, outer walls cleaned by hand tools and electric equipment.

Siida of Märket: Aino, Ari, Johanna, Juho, Kirsti, Klaus, Leena, Saija, Sirpa, Tuula

 

120710 Visitors Owl and Work

 

Johanna is the youngest member of our team. She heard about the Lighthouse society from her sailing friends. Sailing and lighthouses are both rather new interest for her. She has sailed for about one year and participed already two courses in sailing. She came from Helsinki to Taalintehdas sailing with her two friends on a NF30. Quite a challenging trip for three ladies!

Johanna read a few years ago an article about Märket and immediately knew that she wants to visit it. Her sailing hobby has increased her love for sea and lighthouses. She was looking forward to giving her contribution to the restoration of the lighthouse, to meeting nice people and to enjoying to be in the middle of nowhere. She warmly recommends Märket camp for its nature, the changing weather and the change to make new friends. She was happy to discover that even though she is no professional in the construction she has managed all kinds of work. Much more she ever expected. Johanna thinks that with the right attitude you can learn almost anything.

Today Hiltunen family visited us and spend a lot of time (and money) in our little shop. They were on a lighthouse tour and even the kids were enthusiasts. There was also a number of youg people from Eckerö, Aland, picnicking on the island. One of them had worked three times in Bengtskär lighthouse and the grandfather of another had worked here on Märket.

We also had a flying visitor. An owl, probably tower owl, appeared suddenly from between the rocks and the angry terns which are out everyday neighbours were teasing it.

Siida of Märket, all 10

 

130710 Sailor Secret Cellar and Progress in work

 

The members of our group are of very different ages. Yesterday we introduced Johanna who is the youngest of us and today we talk with Leena who is about 30 years older.

Leena is a music teacher – which we could have guessed having heard her sing. She is also the grandmother of two little boys: Daniel, 5 years, and Joel, 3 years. Daniel was thrilled to hear that granny is going to labour camp to a lighthouse. First he wondered what is a lighthouse and then how granny will manage there.

Leena is also a sailor but her experience is from the lakes. She has taken part in a sailing course and organized herself a course: the elements of boating. She has a boat too but her husband is not a sailing person. During the studies Leena worked one summer on a sight-seeing boat near Helsinki. There she organized the catering and other technmical matters. And entertained the customers by singing and playing guitar!

Leena came to Märket because she wanted to visit the lighthouse and an islet where there is hardly any vegetation. (Opposite to her laborious summer house garden.) She also likes to watch the boats in the middle of the sea. In advance she was afraid to be the sole granny among young boys. But she took the risk and it turned out that there are other grandmothers too. She was also surprised that the majority of the participants are women.

We are rotating tasks and today Leena was in the kitchen. Earlier she has cleaned the walls, assorted wastes, searched little stones for the wave breaker, brushed old concrete waste, cleaned indoors, carried dishes up and down the rather steep stairs and carried water from the sea. She has also taken a tent sauna. And she was happy about the chance to visit also Sweden during this holiday!

Leena thinks that she could come also another time to Märket and visit other lighthouses too with the Lighthouse Society.

Today we had only one visitor but even more worthy. It was Pekka on his handmade wooden sailing boat, modified skärgårdskryssare Aallotar. The building of the boat took him five years but it is a real beauty. Besides being very seaworthy the boat shows so good craftmanship that everybody was charmed. Pekka masters also other skills and succeeded to locate the oil leak in the building which has puzzled us for a longer time.

We in our turn proceeded to the old cellar and sauna in the basement. It was full of rubbish and dirt and it took a while to get rid of it all. We found a beautiful tile red-and-white tile floor. The space with vaulted ceiling gave us the idea of Märket’s own wine brand. At the moment we have only a tent sauna, and there are plans for a new sauna in the second floor. But what will be made of the old sauna we don’t know yet.

The most interesting animal visitors today were a fishing black guillemot, a razorbill which stayed for hours in the Northern harbour and (at last) a resting seal on the warm rocks of the eastern end of the island.

Siida of Märket

 

140710 Guests, Coast Guard, Police and Seals

 

Our three men, Juho, Ari and Klaus have done all the men’s work: hammering the walls with electrical tools, maintaining the generator and all the other work with electricity and engines. But they have as well participated in the cleaning of living spaces and kitchen work. Chopping wood, making terrace furniture and making repairs to various things here and there are part of their everyday chores.

One of the tasks has been cleaning of the four large water tanks in the cellar – altogether 7 cubic meters by volume. Exciting task was also assisting the police in removing old trotyl rolls from the attic. The trotyl was earlier used in fog alarm bombs which were exploded in certain intervals to inform the boats where the lighthouse and the shoal is.

Juho has done a lot of nature observations and is often seen with his binoculars looking for birds, seals and approaching boats. Klaus has fetched guests from their boats with a rowing or inflated motor boat. It is a challenging task because of the tricky waters with lot of stones in shallow waters.

Klaus works in the information technology branch and lives in Helsinki. For some time he lived in Oulu, which is the ICT-city in the North. He has a long relationship with the sea – as a child he spent his summers in the archipelago near Turku. Today he has a motorboat together with a friend. He is also active in the voluntary search and rescue associaton. When coming to Märket he was looking forward to the total presence of the sea. He is also interested in the history of the lighthouses and of course of the seals. And his hopes have been fulfilled. He has been surprised how beautiful the island is though there is hardly anything else but rock.

Ari is also from Helsinki. He works in Uusimaa Regional Council in the information department. He wants to point out that on Märket there is the border of three municipalities, of two Swedish provinces and the Aland self-governmental area and of course of two countries! Ari has taken up sailing only for some years ago. He is interested in the sea but also in the protection of historical buildings. He thought before that Märket is in the middle of eternal seascape, but in reality you can see both Finland and Sweden from here. He also hoped to possibly see even one seal but was positively surprised of seeing so many. He heard somewhere that there are 26000 grey seals in the Baltic sea. Today – naturally after work – we made a trip close – but not too close – to a seals’ rocky island. And we saw at least a hundred of them!

Today the coast guard visited the island and took with them some of their old equipment. And the policewomen – Maria Nygård and Nina Rasmus – came to gather the trotyl which there was not so much as they had expected.

And there was a lot of other visitors: the Rosenlöf family, the Hautala family from Raisio, Mr Rönnberg from Tammisaari – all on their own boats. In the evening came the Nyman family from Espoo and the Perttula couple from Susikas on Bengt Granberg’s boat from and back to Käringsundsby.

We received also a new member: Marcus who is from Aland. We’ll tell more about him later.

Siida of Märket

 

150710 Märket, Welcome

 

Marcus is our newest member. He arrived yesterday and will stay here for one week. He lives in Helsinki and in Lemland, Aland. Marcus studies telecommunication engineering at Aalto University, School of Science and Technology in Espoo. He has already studied 6 years and it will still take some years until he graduates. He likes studying, and the student life too.

Marcus has visited several lighthouses, e.g Söderskär and Sälskär. Märket he visited last year. He joined the Lighthouse Society this spring. Marcus’ other interests are radio scanning and all things connected with computers and electronics. He has planned circuits to control various processes. One good example is a beer vending machine – pity he did not take it with him. There is no beer available here and a lot of thirsty workers!

He has also constructed – planned and built – a watch-tower on his summer place in Sipoo. It is a beautiful construction – a bit like Höga C in Godby. It is 12,5 m high and he has installed and programmed a weather station on it which sends online information to his server. And he has built a little lighthouse on his jetty in the summer place too.

The Lighthouse Society asked Marcus to the camp because he speaks Swedish as his first language and can thus make the Swedish guided tours better. He actually did his first guiding today. But now that we know which other – very useful – skills he has, we’ll find him a lot of other duties. Marcus loves the sea and dislikes cities: too much noise, too much people. On Märket it is quiet and not too much folks.

As a student of technology Marcus understands more about the radio amateurs than we others do. It is however not his main field of interest. He has so many other interests. So we are still waiting to see a real radio amateur here on Märket – which is supposed to be a paradise for radio amateurs!

Yesterday our team showed its unsurpassed talent in technology. In the we found some old tackle-blocks and took them in production with no hesitation. It helped very much to lift three heavy windmill accumulators. The tackle-blocks are now permanently installed. Today we did not find anything worth lifting.

Today we had only one visitor: Sören Karlsson from Finström. Some boats slowed down when passing the island, but did not stop. We wondered whether they thought it is a private island. That’s why we constructed a new billboard to advertise: MÄRKET – WELCOME. This simple message concers all of you too!

Weather is a topic that is discussed normally only in Finland and in Great Britain. Elsewhere it is regarded boring. Sea weather is of course another question. All the same: to serve our Finnish and British readers we are happy to give this short report: the weather has been perfect the whole week, temperature warm but not too hot, winds brisk but no storms, very little and mostly pretty clouds, magnific sunsets and not a drop of rain.

Our group, with the exception of Marcus, is leaving on Saturday so tomorrow we’ll write our last blog. We still have three ladies to present – stay tuned!

 

160710 Last evening, last interviews, last dinner…

 

Today is our last day on Märket. And we have three persons to introduce. They are all important members of the group and their work input has been significant.

Saija is our hero labourer. For hours and hours she has hammered old concrete from the walls with hand tools. It is very hard work, the working position is difficult.

And the sun is burning hot all day long. In addition to hammering she has polished all of the handrail upstairs in the lighthouse and been in the kitchen too. Saija is – despite her girlish look – the mother of four children: 18, 17, 16 and 7 years. She came to the labour camp to rest from the hectic family life and to have some time just for herself.

Saija has always loved lighthouses. Earlier she has made shorter trips to Bengtskär and Söderskär and now she wanted to stay a longer time in a lighthouse. She has no history of sailing nor boating but for her the sea is the thing. She is not a lake person – although we do have a lot of lakes in Finland. She hoped that the camp would be nice but it has been much more than nice. The days have run fast. Saija has especially appreciated little pauses in the work listening to the sea. And of course the seals and wandering through the island have been fine experiences. Not to mention the chatting, joking and singing in the bed before falling asleep – and sometimes also after that.

Tuula is originally from Joensuu but lives in Hämeenlinna at the moment. She has a history of sailing and hopes to get a chance to sail also in the future. Her other interests are nature, voluntary work and good food. Tuula has been doing all kinds of work here including guidings. She has also walked the sailors’ dogs during their visit to the island. Today she surprised us by making Aland pancake and served it with canned peaches and jam. Delicious!

Tuula has visited Bentskär, Ulkokalla, Hailuoto, Tankar and Utö. The most beautiful lighthouses in her opinion are Märket and Bengtskär.

Tuula hoped to live life here without computers, emails, phonecalls etc. and she has also managed to do that. Instead she has been listening to the music of the sea and watched colourful sunsets.

Last – but not least – is Kirsti. She is the author of this week’s blog. Beside that she has moved piles and piles of building trash, sawed and chopped firewood and worked in the kitchen. She has also been the camp’s free radical: doing all kinds of works and singing traditional workers’ songs. Kirsti has no history of sailing – she actually gets easily seasick. But she likes to watch the sea – it is like fire, you never get bored. Kirsti has visited lighthouses also in Estonia: e.g. Ruhnu, Kihnu, Sorgu, Tahkuna, Ristna and Kõpu as well as Palinuro in Italy.

Kirsti lives in Helsinki and runs her own company. She is also the grandmother of Luka, almost 8 years. She plans to come to Märket another time with him. Kirsti loves work, good company, good food – and good wine too.

Today we have completed the assignments of this week. Hammering work has continued trough the day, handrails are painted etc. The kitchen is also cleaned from ceiling to floor and the recycling duties carried out, so the next crew can have a fresh start.

We also had a very interesting sailingboat visit of six persons from Sweden today. Tor Schauman, the father of Marita Andersson had been working in Märket for 15 years in the 50´s and 60´s as the family lived in Överby. The family of three generations had a sunny visit with granny telling the stories of the place. At the time of her father being here, the usual jokes came about the idea, that the borderline went exactly trough the main building. The kitchen was in Finland and the bedrooms in Sweden. The father also made a practical joke to the girl, as she, a young honeymooner, sailed from the island. The father started the nautophones, which made a “friendly honk” of at least 120 decibels.

Farewell says the Siida of Märket!