010809 New Crew

 

New group of eight volunteers arrived to Märket!

Already painting the roof, deassembling scaffolds, installing new window frames and fixing our beauty again one step closer from princess to queen. The sea is calm and brought us eight tourists from Mariehamn.

Seals are very active. Waiting for a full moon rising.

 

020809 Sunny Sunday

 

Cold, windy and humid morning turned to be sunny Sunday! Three boats with 17 guests from Åland.

Deassembling scaffolds still. Motivation is very high. Some seals and geese.

 

030809 Windy Monday

 

Wind turned north this morning and chilled the weather soon. Sun still shining.

Volunteers working with painting and windows. Esa started to swap one lens room plastic plex with real old glass window. Lack of some frame material did not disturb him as creative person.

All of us wishing wind to calm down as tomorrow we should get important transportation boat here. One visitor group of 4 from Åland.

 

040809 Last Day

 

Last evening for the team of energetic eight!

Early morning on Märket today. Rainer, Taina and Hannu got up to watch and photograph the red sunrise. According to Rainer, Taina and Hannu looked like Japanese tourist with their cameras. Our Boat Master Maija helped today Ville, tinsmen Uffe and Bro-Erik on shore to add the missing water drains to the front wall of the lighthouse. When they arrived before the noon it was hot and beautifly sunny day. However the Northern harbour had a little bit too heavy waves so they needed to used a buoy in the old harbor instead. During the weekend our tuff men Rainer, Hannu, Tero and Kristian took down almost all the scaffolding and piled them neatly on the North harbour to be ready to be taken away later this week. Weather permitting though, as everything here on Märket. Rea was busy cleaning the entrance of the Northern harbour by piling the scaffoldings there.

During past couple of weeks voluntary workers have been using either a fresh or rain water to mix a sement mass to be used for plastering the walls of the storage building and fixing part of a bridge between the lighthouse and the machine room. Here are three huge tanks to collect rain water on the front yard. Not the best front door welcome decoration though. Our small summer pelargonia in a sink bucket is left without voting on the second place.

That bridge is still in a sorrow condition and needs to be taken care of with lots of love later. Today super plasterer Taina almost finished with the walls of the storage building and cleaned overflown sement from the ground. Even though here is a heavy duty restoration project going on it is important to try to keep Märket`s grounds and environment as tidy as possible.

Also the painting project with the roof of the machine room is getting nicely along and is almost finished. Maija has been acrobating on top of the roof hanging from the harness and painting small dots left without paint when the sheetswere pressed together. This way the new paint will stay there longer.

Timberman Esa is a man that simply makes wonders. Windows up in the lantern cabinet were in a very bad shape and gallons of water had leaked in. He replaced the badly installed acrylic sheet with the new window he made from the old non-fitting one left into the lantern cabinet. As the old aluminium rail didn`t fit he quickly reshaped it. After Esa puttying all the windows on behalf of the the Finnish Maritime Administration they can relax for a while.

New visitors arrived to Märket also today. We had three motor boats today. Rea was busy bubbling away in Swedish when guiding our guest from Åland and Sweden around the island and the lighthouse.

During the past couple of days our visitors have been very impressed by the place and what Finnish Lighthouse Society has done so far to save Märket. The first visit for many of them but definitely not the last one as many of our guests said.

Hannu and Esa started with the terrace project yesterday. The orchestra is already booked as they have worked so quickly that it is almost completed.

First visitors already enjoyed their coffee on the Märket terrace after the guided tour. The grand opening of the terrace will take place later.

During the day we have been wondering once again what Sjöberg thinks about all this… Our real lighthouse guard veteran Rainer has been talking about Sjöberg all week long how fascinating stories he has. Rainer was only 18 years old when he workeg here during 1960-61. Also tomorrow we are waiting new guest here as two TV crews come here and interview Rainer as long as it is ok with Sjöberg.

Now time for BBQ and pancakes. Märket team says now good night.

 

050809 Busy Day

 

A busy day full of various tasks and activities.

In the morning two journalists arrived to Märket to film a news flash for TV-Nytt and FSTV. They had a great opportunity to interview our veteran lighthouse guard Rainer Eriksson. They asked questions about the renovation project and achievements Finnish Lighthouse Society has done here so far.

Rea told about the future plans including e.g. making the old harbour deeper and installing a wind mill behind the storage building to help to produce ground heat so that the painting job setting up the wall papers inside the lighthouse can start. As long as Märket is as humid as it is now it`s useless to continue with indoor restoration. Of course there is a long list of other more urgent task to be taken care of still during this summer. Once they broadcast their material TV viewers will also see Esa and Maija in action painting the window frames of the lantern cabinet.

When the TV crew left we also said goodbye to Esa, Hannu and Taina. Missing them already and their talent and skills in restoration.

Before leaving Esa briefed Maija how to continue with the window project up in the tower. New window benches need to be painted, polished and lacked several times before they are weather proof and match with the new windows.

Building the terrace is on hold for a while as timbermen Esa and Hannu left today. Before leaving Taina was busy cleaning the yard. We are pretty much done with the scaffolding- thank God. Rainer and Tero took down the last ones. It has been very demanding and heavy job to carry them one by one and all other material to the Norther harbour. We are expecting a special invasion boat to take all scaffolding and recycled material away from here as soon its engine works again. Tero, Rainer, Maija and Rea have taken well over 50 000 steps while carring the scaffolding at least is feels so. We got to know totally new muscles as strange places in our bodies are acking. Let put it this way, once the scaffolding are gone for good we are more than happy and will not in the near future wanna hear a word scaffolding again. Of course the front yard will look again a lot nicer and it is rewarding that one big step has kicked forward.

Kristian sunburnt himself badly so he has had a curfew pretty much all day long. We would have desperately needed his hands as there were so much to carry. Kristian wiped the floors, heated the stoves with Maija and was our kitchen boy while Rea was busy guiding our guest all day long.

We had five groups with five nationalities during the day; Frenchman, German, Portuguese, Swedish and Finns, who arrived here with charterboat, kayaks, sailing boat and a motorboat. What an international day and mix of various languages.

At the moment we feel like in a book of – Five In An Old Lighthouse – written by Enid Blyton. It is pushing 10.30 and we are still blogging and and trying to cook our supper in a candle light. We have been working already for 14 hours so no wonder that we veru hungry and also a little bit tired.

By the way, Sjöberg has been behaving well today and we are happy that he brought us so many guest, also one single one with beautiful eyes… Now time for supper. Finally!

 

060809 Five Mules In Märket Sweathshop

 

Definitely the toughest day and the shitties job of the summer. But it will be all worth it as results can be seen already now and Märket’s surrounding will be cleaned. At 8pm it is still +23C outside, during the day Solberg (i.e. sol means sun in Swedish) – yet another nice nickname by Rainer – was burning with +28C. Sjöberg has never been this still, said Rainer and he has spent a lots of time here during his lighthouse guard months. Yes, with Sjöberg Rainer means the sea (sjö means sea in Swedish).

Because of the calm weather we unfortunately got some cyano bacteria around the Märket. The old harbor looks very unpleasant and thus we need to carry our washing water from far away. We´ve been drinking gallons of water and juice but wound´t mind if someone sent us some ice cold beers. Our garden pelargonia even started to bloom in this hot climate.

So why so heavy day? We´ve been carrying and dragging all the scaffoldings, old roof sheets, recyclable material, problem waste, rusted iron pieces and an old bed, and all sorts of scrap to the Northern harbor to be taken away. We also needed to change the place of the scaffoldings already piled there as we got the big boat with a crane to take all this material away here at once instead of doing several trips by a smaller boat.

The boat arrived around 5.30 pm and it seems that we are pushing yet another 16 hour working day here. As we even pay for to be able to work this way, I guess some sort of a sanity check would´t be a bad idea after all.

Maija has done a great job painting a base coat for new window benches Esa made earlier this week. She also painted window frames with a second layer.

Cafe Märket serves during this week a special dish. Rea fried buns, flamed them with chocolate rum, topped with whipped cream and strawberry jam. Very yummy, thanked our Swedish guests.

Also two other motor boats from Sweden visited us today. Luckily our Society member Tuomas arrived to Märket with her daughter Lotta. Tuomas was a great resource with his strong hands helping us with the carrying job. Thanks a lot for your help!

Radio amateurs also arrived this morning and they been busy installing their equipment around Märket. The generator is on, so it is a bit difficult to hear the seals or birds sing. Not that we have seen any seals today around Märket. Yesterday at midnight one seal came to swim in our swim basin called Modersmagen (i.e. uterus in Swedish). Tero swam together with it and was very thrilled about that experience.

What Sjöberg and Solberg will do tomorrow remains to be seen…

 

070809 Best Regards

 

Cleaned Märket visible again!

After busy Thursday yesterday we tried to calm down our last day in Märket. But it turned to be busy day as well. We got three boats of visitors from Finland, Åland and Sweden.

From Sweden we got special VIP guest Marianne Brus, originally from our closest neighbour, Understen lighthouse. Marianne and her friends enjoyed sunny Märket day and had Rea´s delicious chocolate rum flambered buns.

Tuomas and Lotta left us today and continued their boating holiday in Åland. Tuomas is our member and was great help yesterday when carrying scaffoldings and trash to the ship.

Radio amateurs prepared on antenna more and are ready for 36-of-48 hour competition. We wish good signals for them. May the ions be with you!

Rainer found some loose bolts in iron windows and tries to fix them up to avoid unwanted visit of Sjöberg inside the lighthouse. Rainer also put old original lamp to the museum with self-made stand.

Maija completed machine room roof,installed windows, puttied window shelves (which Esa made before) and painted lantern cabin window frames.

Tero was guiding first time for Finnish group. Also documenting and photographing new cleaned look of Märket and prepared task list for next group arriving tomorrow.

Cleaning and re-organizing is also important. That and shop inventory was done by Rea, supported by Kristian. Märket media archive was pretty much filled with unnecessary trash paper by time.

Soon it is time for the last supper. Starting tomorrow you get these greetings from totally new group. We all thank you for being with us. Best regards: Rainer, Rea, Kristian, Maija and Tero