060909 The Newcomers

 

Our newcomers odyssey from Helsinki to Märket finally found its destiny yesterday evening. Because of heavy southwind we couldn´t land on the lighthouse in the Saturday morning as planned so nothing but time to loose we cruised around northern Åland with Kalle´s cool open Merzedes-Benz and found one correspondent from Austria and one extreme tourist from Lahti trying to get to Märket as well. In the uncertain situation Andreas the Austrian journalist chose to keep his son on the first place and left back home not knowing that we actually made it to Märket at 20:06 on Saturday.

So it was yahoo for Riina and Kati who turned 40 today when Mats and Yvonne made the changing of the guards possible. We didn´t do much but booked rooms (Saara at the attic and Kalle in the museum room) and had one toast for our new home.

Sunday started gray. To have peace and silence around you drives some people into action: first thing in the morning Kalle showed his skills in joiner art. Now there is a portable woodrack in Märket, thanks to artist Ström.

Meanwhile Saara stayed in bed until 11:00, taking back what she had missed the nights before. Then we put the fire on in the upstairs and kitchen´s fireplaces to drive some humidity out.

At 13:20 we got some suprice guests. Malin, Mikael and Tia the seadog landed next to the rubber boat before we even were outside to recieve them. Saara guided them with the little information she had in her mind and less Swedish she had in her mouth but our guests from Hammerland didn´t mind this unprofessional style. Malin works at Hugo´s where we get our food for which felt deep respect. This couple spent their rare freeday without children to visit Märket with their own snacks and coffee.

After this social event Kalle got the grill warm and we had lunch/dinner with greek salad, blue cheese mushrooms and steaks with and without meat. In the evening it`s time to read trough older journals and fix the timetable of seaweather report on the wall. But before that: Sailor pastry (biscuit and stawberry jam) and coffee with cardamom outside in the sun!

Day 1 – over and out, Saara the junior.

 

070909 Sun And Fireplaces

 

We waited for Sturm und Drang but Märket has shown its kind side by far. Today started with sunshine and almost without wind.

In spite of this summerish weather the first thing in the morning was to set the fire to the fireplaces and heat the washing water for ourselfs. The wood we have here is somekind of surplus from the building sites so it burns fast, we have to add wood every now and then to keep the fire on. It´s a continual job to chop the wood and run between the floors. You can see the benefit tought; for example the crackers that were forgotten last night on the kitchen table were dry in the morning. Kati and Riina (last week´s guards) told us that they had some problems with the attic´s fireplace leaking the smoke. We found out that the smoke gets out from the sheet hole and we´re trying to solve some solution that supports both practice and restoring.

Before lunch Saara did some laundry, got herself wet and and made her first contact with the Swedish water. No harmful algae in the water so regards back home!

As the Austrian correspondent couldn´t visit Märket came Saara his trusted assistant. Andreas is going to write a reportage about Märket´s unique situation in the world´s border history so he needs some photos from this rocky island.

The sunset was perfect to get some cheesy images of the lighthouse but typically the digital camera wasn´t co-operating. For the battiers to be loaded we started the generator. First time no, second time no, third time no. After some contact with ancient gods the engine started running. Not late after this Pekka called and told us that tomorrow we´re getting grand old guests, some radio amateurs that have visited Märket since the 70´s. So no silence after tomorrow morning but world wide signals 24/7!

Day 2 over and out – Saara

 

080909 The Radiomen

 

Swedish speaking radio reads out loud the Stormskärets Maija, Anni Blomqvist’s famous book about tough life in the archipelago of Åland. The wind howles trough the lighthouse and the fire crackles in the corner. Outside there is only sea as far as you can see. Is this the moment when you actually are in the picture that has been only a fantasy by far? Are things ever like you wished when they are finally concrete? Does the lighthouse make us confront something too vulnerable in ourselves? For example the quality of our literary expression. Maybe it would be better to focus on daily happenings and after finishing Joyce’s Ulysses and Perec’s La Vie mode d´emploi try to get rid of this 19th century style…

Yes, the radio men came today. Lars and Pertti landed at 8:00 sharp with “light baggage”, only half of the sea resque boat was taken! They got the boys room downstairs and placed their radio equipment there. The purpoise of their visit is to fix radio amateurs engine and greet fellow freaks around the world.

Kalle had heated their room last night to give the feeling of Ritz. Today he carried on with the fireplaces and saved Saara couple of times when she couldn’t get the wood burning. Kalle, formerly known as bodyguard Hasselhoff, has reached the title of firemaster of Märket and is worried about the house after summer volunteers leave – lighthouse should be warm more often in the wintertime.

Saara made basic vegetarian lens soup for lunch and noticed that her cooking scale is for hungry young men, soup should last the whole week.

Other work done on Tuesday was basic housekeeping stuff: cleaning, dishwashing, emptying bio compost and wood chopping. As the evening falls senior men gather around the kitchen table and the junior sneaks up to her virgin room to write letters back home before loosing her vision. Tomorrow’s journal will tell about the animal life of Märket!

Day 3 over and out – Saara

 

090909 On A Desert Island

 

Wednesday was the first real windy day! Saara started her day by opening the roofhatch like every morning and noted below Pertti fighting against the wind. Like the weather broadcast promised at 7:50 it blew from south-west around 14m/s the whole day. We’ve had mostly clear sunshine during the daytime by far so it is really refreshing to walk out on the cliffs.

The swallows have a nest under the engine house’s eaves like some of the previous guards might have meantioned. The couple has at least two fledglings that are learning to fly because soon it’s their time to leave the nest and head to Africa. Saara has tried to keep her eyes open for this fascinating event but might be cause of the wind only the big ones have been flying around. She got a guest one evening when the other visited her window.

On a desert island you pay attention to the flora and fauna more than in the city where you must observe other human beings. We have seen at least seagulls, cormorants, wagtails, flys, spiders, ladybugs, small fishes and those annoying mosquitos that hang around the lighthouse’s light, on the shelterder side of the wind.

The infamous seals just haven’t shown their wet faces yet and we start to doubt that either the diesel engine of radio amateurs that yes, gives us electric light, but also calls out like a small factory, fears them off or the seals are just a poetic legend of Märket. They still have two days to correct this lack!

Kalle took a day off from the warm up (maybe the firemaster’s title was too heavy for him?) and checked out the shores. Catch: an empty tetrapack of pineapple juice. The treasure ended up in the oven outside. During this Saara handled the leftover wood for fire and practiced the guiding.

Today’s thriller was when Lars saw something out in the sea; he suspected it could be a buoy wandering on the waves. After Saara’s exploring expedition with binoculars the thiller turned out to be something different than she hoped, just a damn seagull that flew away.

But you never know when something crazy happens, at least tomorrow has a good chance when we do the shitty work with emptying the toilet!

Day 4 over and out – Saara

 

100909 What to do Next

 

You may find yourself living in a beautiful lighthouse, with a beautiful view, and you may ask yourself: What to do next? Our fifth day here at Märket has been more or less looking for something to do. When the season is over and it’s just two of us here the possibility to achieve great reputation in recondition is minor.

Saara woke up at 7:00 to get the accommodation fee from the radio men that were supposed to leave in the morning. But once again when the hatch was open came forth wind’s strength and her assumption got confirmed when she visited the boys room – the life-saving patrol would be able to visit Märket not until the evening. Hard wind played prancks with us during the day: Kalle had to save down from the cliffs three metallic bars that insulates the dangerious fall next to the helicopter field, Saara’s bed got tangled by the loose paint on the window still when she ventilated upstairs and you had to make sure that the plastic cups didn’t fly away while washing the dirty dish.

In this weather it is really charming to sit down in a t-shirt under the yellow telephone sign because the wind doesn’t hit so hard there. You just have to be vigilant if someone wants to use this area for peeing. The eggs that were here when we came don’t have a date of agening so Kalle decited to play it safe and made a tasty Sallad Nicoise, recept found in “VeckoRevyn” from the year 1975.

After the meal Saara broke one pint of glass, glomsy girl. And when the clock reached eight we had to end our coffee moment with Lars and Pertti.

The life-saving boat approached Märket first seeking the northern harbour but couldn’t land with the four meter tall waves. For a moment we wished to be forced to take the gentlemen to the buoys with the rubber boat (Saara even dressed her sea cap for the voyage!) but the life-savers are not beginners, they came calm and steady all the way to the shore.

We said farewell to the radio men and withdrew in to the lighthouse for night job.

Day 5 over and out – Saara

 

110909 Snuff and Shitworkers

 

Today was Saara’s last day here. Kalle will stay for the next week with Märket’s new guards, whoever they might be. We’ve heard only that 1. they don’t know each other 2. they are two men and one woman. Hope they are decent and hard-working citizen.

This morning Saara woke up thinking about the improvement propositions for lighthouse’s activity and one of them is to have guiding instructions in Swedish for those who can’t translate in action. When she got up from her bed and looked out from the window there was a small, white motor boat approaching. Pants, blouse, shoes and off she ran downstairs to find Kalle. Kalle was having a peaceful breakfast but now he had to hurry down the ladders too. When we reached the cliffs we found three washable Swedish guys, jumping off from the boat as professionals. Jonas, Lasse and Per had made jokes in the morning when they left Singö out to the sea that they’ll visit Finland and so it went! It was Jonas first time on Märket so Saara gave him and Per a tour, this time better than one week ago when she could hardly remember the year Märket was built.

After guiding we sat down with the men, eating korv o bröd, drinking coffee and talking about lighthouse’s future. If we got it right from their heavy dialect Lasse is nowadays a pilot but has worked on Understen’s lighthouse, 12 km from Märket, Per is a construction worker and Jonas is, among other things, a mason. They might contact Finnish lighthouse society in the future to help to save Märket! After joking something about snuff and smuggling was the joke on Saara. The true Swedish offered her some and of course she had to prove her maritime coolness.

When the visitors left it was the usual: heating, chopping wood, cleaning kitchen, having coffee, having lunch, writing, exploring what might have missed, fixing something small. It was also a day of redemption. Because we’d declaired already the day before yesterday and let all the readers down yesterday it was now time to confront the toilet. Easy, simple and not that smelly. So all you coming here after us, don’t fear!

Another swindle that had to be marked was Kalle’s big talk since the day one. We saw a hammer on the bottom of the rubber boat’s bay and Kalle promised to get it out some day. Tattadaa, after getting the rust off it is perfectly serviceable.

While writing this entry has something surprising happend. Kalle is off to bed and Saara is staying up. She will climb up to the roof and give her partings to the place. Tomorrow morning will Yvonne and Mats bring new people and it will be a new style of writing in the journal. Crazy how you eventually miss something you dislike in the beginning!

Day 6 over and out – Saara