Märket is alive again!

Today – Monday 14.5.2007 – the lighthouse of Märket received new hosts – or hostesses – after more than 30 years of solitude. Former Märket Lighthouse keeper Roland Carlberg (on the rear of the boat in the main image) helped the Finnish Lighthouse Society in moving to Märket.

We brought the crew to Märket on Monday morning in a full mist – the sight was less than 500 metres. Finally, Märket just jumped in front of us! In spite of rising southerly wind we could land directly from the boat to the rocks

After an hours interviews with the media and a lot of instructions we left the women waiving their hands on the island, Märket lighthouse behind them! We wished them all the best on the lonely island!

 

Tuesday 15.5.2007

Greetings from Märket! Today was our second day here in Märket.

We had quite a start for our watch. It was rainy, windy and foggy. It was quite an effort just to get us places to sleep. But this morning our life changed, sun came out, wind was only 6-8 m/s. A sleeping bag filled with dovejackets, woolen caps and socks guaranteed a nice sleep around the clock. It has been beautiful, fantastic and very busy day in the lighthouse of Märket. When the madness came out and we started jumping around the island, filming everything, taking photos and screaming: we are so lucky to be here. We fixed jelly breakfast and enjoyed us on the rocks. When we took a seawaterbath it was freezing. The seals were bathing in the sun on the little rock. There is about 80 of them and every now and then a couple comes to follow our tasks. There heads pop out of the see and they stare us for a while and dive away. Whole day we can hear them hallowing. Our dear neighbours.

We started to sort out all the gear that was brought here by the lighthouse people. And there is plenty of it. It took us about the whole day get a mobile computer to work. We need that for sending pictures.

And the second challenge was the very pro grill that was still in its box waiting for us to screw it together.

We made it in two hours and had a wonderful grilled porkbeef dinner outdoors.

We explored the lighthouse, climbed up the stairs. Scenery from up is fantastic. We can easily see the Finnish coast in the east and other lighthouses nearby. Visibility is outstanding.

We made ourselves a long list about the things to do here today, but it seems to take a long time to get one thing done here. This must be the magic of this place: the slow life. And we are enjoying every minute. And we feel we have been fixing and doing all the time, going up and down. Most of the day we have been outdoors today. But we have clear plans of what we intend to get done indoors. You will see.

Now we are sitting in the nothern corner of the granite wall, looking at the sunset and the seals. The wind has picked up. It is about 10 m/s and we are happy watchers. The end.

 

Wednesday 16.5.2007

Today we woke up to a beautiful spring morning. The sky was all clear, wind was very moderate; about 6-7 m/s. The sea looked beautiful, shining in the sun.

The group of seals had landed in the eastern corner on our island. And the swallows appeared and flew around the lighthouse all morning. Wind is from south-west, so the north shore offered us a sheltered shore for bathing (the seawater is icecold).

We enjoyed breakfast outdoors on the rocks and in the sheltered place it is allmost warm: you can take of the woolcap. We started two projects. We set up the biotoilett in the woodshelter. It needs to be set up in a higher place in order to work properly. But that will be a good project for a handy carpenter.

Then we decided a place for the waterstove. It shall be outdoors as long as the autumn storms come.

Then we started the kitchen project. First thing was to put rubbercloves on. The ancient painting of the ceiling keeps falling of in pieces and creates junk all over the place. There is a massive amount of dirt and junk; rusted peasoupcans, empty boozebattles and rotten macarones for example. We save everything for the museum intendent, but use some detergent and female touch.

Next project is the cleaning of the stairs of the lighthouse. The place is covered with the plaster that fall of the walls.

The Lighthouse society had brought a lot of good food for us and today we had vegetable soup for lunch. For the dinner we attend to grill some beef.

All together lighthouse has started to feel very nice and cosy, we feel like home already.

Around three o’clock wind died totally and in the south came black stormclowes, by 4.30 they reached us and gave us little water and brought us some wind and cool air. They seem to be local clowes. So, woolen caps back on!

 

Thursday 17.5.2007

This day has been very busy and happy day here at the Märket lighthouse. When we woke up today it was beautiful sunshine, sea was calm, wind maybe 2-3 m/s.

We had today Märket activist Ville Holmberg and his family and a motor expert Bror Humell from mainland Åland visiting us. Also boys from the Enskär coastguard visited us. We invited them for a cup of coffee.

Ville and Bror checked the engine room and it’s condition. We explored the attic with them. There is a lot of treasures for museum people to investigate.

One of the last lighthouse keepers (before us) was Roland Karlberg who still lives in Hammarland. We heard that he is very handy and we saw in the attic some wooden artefacts made by him. He made 2-3 rowing boats while he was on the island.

The whole furniture here in the lighthouse is part of its history and worth saving. They are very important because they tell their own story about the history of the lighthouse. And now they are going to have second life.

One of the modern lighthouse keepers, Kikka, spend day filming everything possible, among others she interviewed us the ”lighthouse keepers” and filmed the explore tour to the attic. She is making TV document about opening the Märket lighthouse. She was little bit sad because she had to leave today, but she got exellent material about our unique experience here on Märket.

Seals left their home rock when the guests arrived around 11 o’clock and disappeared for the whole day. Something important happened today: the flag of the Finnish Lighthouse Society is now on!

 

Friday 18.5.2007

Yesterday we had many guests but today has been quiet. Last night after the sunset we were sitting on the west side of Märket (in Sweden!). One seal climbed on a rock and it was only 70 meters away from us. The seal seemed to be very curious about us: who are those people and what are they doing here? This is their home island and we are here just visitors.

Today we found a seal that was not moving but still breathing on the east side of the island. I had seen it already two days ago, but I though it was just a lonely soul who wanted to be alone. Yesterday it was still there, but we didn’t have time until today to check it. At first I though it was dead, but when I walked closer I saw it was still alive. We let the coastguard know about that and hopefully somebody comes to ”take care of it”. It looked quite normal, but it just lied there in there in the same place.

Most of the seals have been gone since they left yesterday. They have not been on their homerock like they did in the first two days. They have some ”business” somewhere else. They have been swimming around.

Today we have been doing just normal everyday rutines: sawing some wood in small pieces, making fire of it and warming water in a pot. We are very happy that it works, allthough there was smoke all over because some parts are still missing from it. But anyway: we have boiled water now and we will have a hot dusch instead of icecold seawater.

Unfortunately technical equipment takes still too much our time, we think. Mobil phones, cameras, computers are running out of power when we are trying to reach the outer world. We have little Silva Polar 2 which collects energy from the sun and it is possible to reload a mobil phone with it as long as the sun keeps shining.

It is surely a different world here on Märket at the moment compared to 1880’s, but we are quite sure here is still very much left of the atmosphere of the past century. In fact a hundred years ago this lighthouse was in better condition than now. Furniture were unbroken and they could use every room and owens.

What is new here at the moment, is we, who came here with all our electricity. We can’t use owens and all rooms here in these days, but we’ll hope it will be possible again in the future of Märket.

About the weather: morning was clowdy, calm, warm. Around 4 o’clock hard wind started, about 12 m/s. At the moment there is very good visibility, little bit clowdy, sunshine.

We are having some hot water in a pot and planning to get warm shower. Oh, we are so lucky!

 

Saturday 19.5.2007

It was a wonderful morning! It started very windy but sunny and beautiful. Wind has been around 15 m/s the whole day and at the moment (5.30 PM) waves are becoming higher.

We had breakfast outside in front of the lighthouse. We tried to found a corner where wind blowed as little as possible. We sat there and enjoyed exellent view with the cup of coffee. Wind has been from southeast.

We are still having problems with technical equipments (for example the people on the mainland have not been able to include our many photos yet in the stories – sorry!). Otherwise everything is going fine.

Only few of the seals have returned to Märket. We saw 10-20 seals on a little rock westside of the island.

Today afternoon we have been working inside the lighthouse. Because of the wind it is impossible to do anything outside. At half past three it started to rain.

We made a trip to cellar, where we saw of all kind of old cellarstuff and small sauna (one man at time fits to sit there), which should be one of the first things to repare.

After the trip to cellar we started with the attic room, where I have been sleeping. We cleaned the room up and reorganized furnitures and old books and magazines. Now it is much nicer to stay there.

During the cleaning of the place we have noticed that people who have spent time here during the last years have left all empty bottles here and there is a few hundred of them. It is kind of sad. Now it is our job to take them away from this island.

However, it still feels that we are in the middle of a quite unique experience.

 

Sunday 20.5.2007

This morning we could finally put the flag back up after the hard wind. It was a fine ceremony. Weather has been excellent; blue sky, still winding about 7 m/s. No seals have been seen today.

Today’s highlight was this: Märket had the first ’official’ visitors! We were at that moment in the middle astanga-yoga-practice when we suddenly noticed that there were five men walking on a rock in front of us. They told us that they were from Sweden and here for diving.

The divers had a big boat. All together there were ten divers who visited Märket today. Most of them were here on the island for the first time.

They did’nt have any money with them, but we were so confused and happy about the Märkets first visitors that we let them see the lighthouse for free (it costs 5 € by the way) – for the first and last time! It was nice to show the lighthouse and what we have done here during this week. Visitors were surprised that the lighthouse was open and they could take a look at it. Lighthouse has a new life now.

We also learned something: we must remember that lighthouse keepers one very important task is to collect money from the visitors. It all goes to this project: saving the Märket.

Otherwise this day has been ordinary and fine day. We have been cutting wood, boiling water in a pot, organized some little things inside.

We are not planning to begin any bigger projects because we have to leave tomorrow. Anyway, we are doing little things all the time, and the point is to fix the lighthouse step by step.

P.S. Our friends left us a grill sausage to the grill when they were here on thursday. We were very happy to find it, because we didn’t have anything else than potatoes to grill! Thank you Ville & Tiina!