Week 34 , 16-23.8 -14 ,Hedda,Enna,Paula and Leena
New crew with 3 guests starting the week-one swedish woman only visiting the lighthouse ,but two of our guests going to stay over night at the lighthouse! It is a farewell gift from the Östersjöfonden (Baltig Fund). ”Märkets Bed and Breakfast” is hopely going to give them a wonderful experience!
They seemed to enjoy their visit;good food,sauna and swimming ,nice wether-what else do you need.
A swedish boat moored at the lihthouse buoy,but they didn`t want to come ashore allthough Leena rowed to their boat.Luckily the outboad motor started on the way back!
Sunday 17.8
Sunny morning,wind is blowing from south instead of yesterdays hard north wind.
Mats came to get our guests at home,we offered the last coffees to them.They helped to carry our water tanks ashore from the boat.
”The Bed and Breakfast ” was closed and we started to work. Hedda and Enna counted all the sacks of concrete in the warehouse.Information to the mainland is important. Enna continued the work with taking away old paint and plastering.
Paula,the Masterchef ,served us delicious salmon soup of the rest of the fish she fried yesterday to the guests. What a fortune we got Paula with us! At first she decided to stay home because of getting her first grandchild.Luckily the baby came earlier to the world !
We have planned tomorrows tasks on a rainy day,still blowing,the clifs are slippery and it`s not safe to do the cleaning we planned. Chopped some firewood to get wood kindled easier.
Monday 18.8
No visitors out here…
In the morning little rain,day sunny and wind raising all the time.I the afternoon about 10 m/sek. from south.
We started to clean rubble from the clifts,it was old bricks everywhere after a big storm last autumn.
Tuesday 19.8
Yesterday evening we were waiting for a thunderstrom to come,but saw only clouds passsing by and beautiful lightening on Åland.In the morning same situation,lucky we!
Our tenant under the roof,a very busy swallow is still having youngsters in the nest.How do they manage to grow strong enough for migrating?
Others are allready migrating,gathering food at seashore and from ponds.
They were not the only ones wading in the ponds….we were also ”having fun” collecting some treasures from ponds…Old bricks!
In the early evening we were hit by a heavy rain,nice time to warm up the sauna!
Wednesday
After morning swim at the lagoon, birdwatching and breakfast ,we started to carry the rest of the old bricks away from the seashore. Heavy job!Fingers are aching and last evening our arms were rising them selves…Luckily we have the best sauna out here!
We painted the lighthouse door ,it turned brown in minutes and now it´s saved from storms. That was a nice task! This is the first layer,then it has to be puttied.Maybe next summer it gets the second layer of paint. The humidity out here is over 80% ,better do painting on hot summer days.
What next? The lighthouse walls outside needs to be painted as well…but we have to wait this paint dries at first….Of course we want to paint the whole lighthouse! There is so much to be done,but one week is so short time.And you can´t work in very heavy wind or rain!
It should`t be raining today,but somehow the clouds found our little islet again.We were piling up firefood inside the warehouse,so it didn´t disturb at all. Swimming in the lagoon again after work-as every day.
Thursday 21.8
Beautiful,sunny morning! In the mainland it`s raining all the time. We started the day with ”lady gym” ,piling firewood uppstairs in the warehouse.
It was a 5 hours job to do,then it was time to have spaghetti a la Märket. Just when it was ready we heard a terrible noice outside….a helikopter of coast guard landed surprisingly on the clifts. All the girls run to put on clean t-shirts,look at the mirror(maybe first time in this week…) and run down to wish them welcome to Märket islet.
They were guys from Furuno,coming to take care of the cameras and equipments on the roof.
Nice that somebody understands something about those….
In while they were working ,Leena run rapidly to the forest to pick up some blueberries…and made a pie for coffee.
While closing the eyes we see only firewood in huge piles…or goodlooking men on helikopter…?
Friday 22.8
Our last day on the islet. Nice,sunny morning.After a calm night new migrating birds has landed on Märket. Nice chirping all over the clifts.
We still had some painting to do.
Nice to have these kind of tasks,when you can see so congretely what you have done.
After lunch a little rain again,just one cloud, but still disturbing the painting.
We started to pack and clean the ligthouse -in the morning we have to leave this lovely islet.
At night we had a new visitor on the eastside clifts…
It was thundering behind him,the nature showed her best in the last hours on our visit here.