Week 28: Jake, Noora ja Veera - Suomen Majakkaseura ry

Saturday 9.7.2016

Saturday – and change of the crew!

Our small team of three met on Friday evening on the boat to Mariehamn. For a Märket first-timer like Noora, it felt safe and comfortable to start the journey from the arms of beloved Ville Viikinki. Veera happily participated the photo opportunity.

Weather on Saturday morning was warm and smooth. What a pleasure to take the boat trip from Eckerö towards the lighthouse!

We had some nice company from Käringsund harbour: three young ladies, summer workers from guest harbour, getting to know Märket before they market the lighthouse visit to the tourists.

On Mats’s boat we had the wonderful luck to see some 30-40 seals, first taking it easy on a rocky islet and then swimming right aside the boat. There was even a white baby seal taking a nap and then diving to the sea to it’s family.

No pictures of the seals this time, sorry! The writer was too stunned to take any.

Some of us had prepared themselves well to the special lighthouse circumstances. Loving the style, Veera!

…and yes, some of us just started their 10^thMärket summer. Outstanding, Jake!

In the afternoon we had our first visitors: Kai, his son Olli and friend Jari, on a sailing trip around Aland.

Kai and Olli already knew the place from five years back, and were able to remind us about the condition of renovating work back then. The ”new” sauna got full approval from the gentlemen.

Interestingly enough, Olli, 14 years, is already becoming a full-trained sailor with wide scale of skills.

Veera’s lively guiding tour was added some extra groove, thanks to the tern.

Sunday 10.7.2016

Our day began with some household tasks and basic maintenance of the lighthouse facilities. We fixed the outdoor dishwashing table to a bit higher version, in name of ergonomy of taller members of the crew.

Jake cleanded the solar panels while the ladies prepared to receive days guests, and a broken door handle was fixed. As the wind was only around 3 m/s, we were also able to have the obligatory training to use the inflatable boat and outboard motor.

During the day we admired the layers of history, decades back still visible at the lighthouse. It seems valuable that the Lighthouse Society has preserved the unique atmosphere of the lighthouse in various ways, including the precious museum room with belongings of past lighthouse keepers.

Interestingly, we found out that the lighthouse keepers of 1940-50’s have been fond of the exactly same lotion as a member of our team today.

Also the crew’s t-shirts reflect history and modern times: a brand new shirt on Veera – and a vintage one on Jake.

…and as we got started, we saw pairs of old/new version everywhere. To name one, the tiny solar panels providing the electricity to the lighthouse lamp – and the four old diesel engines needed back in 1950’s.

It was a lively day with many visitors, thanks to great weather.

A Swedish group of six by motorboat Aqua Vera were on a long awaited tour to see Märket. Several of them had already read the outstanding newly released book by Jan Andersson on the history of the islet, and were well informed.

It turned out that one representative of the group, Lennart, had a background of working on the boat ”Gävle” which later wrecked dramatically at Södra Sankan near Märket, in October 1975. ”Luckily I was not on board, as I only worked on Gävle at summer time”, he told us.

During the day we also followed the activities of divers, trying to locate steamship Belliver’s wreck, sunk in 1911 near Norra Sankan. Later in the afternoon the divers, representing a sports diving club from Pori (Porin Urheilusukeltajat ry), visited us and had a full tour.

Also a couple from Helsinki, Sirpa and Tuomo, visited the islet with their unique, self-made boat ”Menopeli”.

Monday 11.7.2016

The weather today has been somewhat gray, with moist wind (8 m/s) from south / south east and a few raindrops before noon. Still, it has been quite warm, around +16 degrees celsius and also a few glimpses of sun.

Thus, a great weather for some household tasks inside. As the conditions are quite harsh on the islet, there is a constant list of small tasks to maintain the lighthouse buildings in good shape, even though the main part of renovating has been finished during the recent years.

Today our tasks included trying to fix a wobbly step of the stairs going up to the lighthouse tower, cleaning the sauna and washing outhouse floor. Basic stuff that needs to be done.

Inside the warehouse you could hear constant humming from the roof, as the small windmills were rotating swiftly in the wind and producing electricity for the Border Protection’s technical gear located on the roof and in the warehouse building.

Note the flag!

As there were no guests because of the wind conditions (one sailing boat with Swedish flag tried to anchor on the northern side, with no success), we had plenty of time to admire local flora and fauna on the cliffs.

There are no high level bird experts present this week, so no rarities spotted – this far. But we have found the company of everyday local residents, such as ringed plovers (tylli in Finnish, Charadrius hiaticula), cormorants (merimetso, Phalacrocorax carbo), guillemots (riskilä, Cepphus grylle) and oystercatchers (meriharakka, Haematopus ostralegus) quite rewarding.

And even though the arctic tern population does not seem to be all that happy with our presence, they still brought us a present: an European eelpout (kivinilkka, Zoarces viviparus) was left right in front of the stairs during the night.

Rejected tern eggs. What a pity!

We found some evidence of past existence of a tree on the islet.

As the weather was grey, we took the sun in through the kitchen. Excellent soup made of root vegetables, garlic, ginger and turmeric.

…but there was even more gray to come. Around 4 pm we were suddenly surrounded by a thick wall of fog, within maybe half an hour.

Tuesday 12.7.2016

It has been a nice, peaceful, sunny and windy day on the Märket islet. Southern wind, between 6 and 9 m/s, a bit of clouds and a short periof of rain. Mostly sunshine. No guests (due to the wind), except two seals on northern cliffs. They even sang us a little!

The official highlight of the day was a problem solving session with the gray water filter, not letting the water through fast enough. Just imagine the smell of the stuff inside. Obviously, Jake was not the one to cook today.

Märket solar energy system is functioning well. With only three people staying overnight and the weather being reasonably sunny, we might well be able to avoid using the generator, providing emergency power in case of not enough sun.

As the generator is pretty noisy, we would of course appreciate that. That’s why we have followed closely the data on energy production of solar panels – and our consumption. Pretty interesting stuff!

For instance, making coffee causes an immediate 1000 W peak on our electricity consumption (as the average during daytime, with only a few devices connected, might be around 200-300 W). Making a toast for breakfast means 600 extra watts.

On the other hand, during a sunny day like this, the solar panels are able to produce as much as 1300 W. Of course, the production changes hugely during the day as the clouds and occasional rains pass the islet. During rain, in daytime, there was still around 100 W of energy coming in.

And yes, at the end of the day our solar battery had recharged itself from 54 % up to 65 %. Hooray!

Wednesday 13.7.2016

Another day with lots of sun and wind, only very thin layer of clouds every now and then – and again great input of solar energy. The wind had turned slightly to south west during the night, blowing 6-7 m/s the whole day. The temperature has been around very comfortable +16-18 degrees.

We got no visitors, even though the northern harbour would have been accessible most of the day.

Fortunately, we had something else of interest to observe. In the morning we spotted a Swedish mine clearance vessel HMS Kullen (M74) on the eastern side of Märket, not far from Finnish territorial waters. The vessel continued to cruise back and forth most of the day, leaving us to wonder what was going on. A sorf of a naval exercise, maybe.

We also spotted something else. The seal we saw yesterday was still laying on the same cliff, on exactly the same spot. Another one had vanished, and so did this stable one soon after we had started to worry it might be sick or wounded.

We have also been happy to add some avian species on our list of observations: a turnstone (in Finnish karikukko, Arenaria interpres), dunlins (suosirri, Calidris alpina), common eiders (haahka, Somateria mollissima) and a solitary razorbill (ruokki, Alca torda).

And talking about visitors: there are some persistent ones! Jake told he has planted these wild chives on the islet a couple of years back. And they have survived the conditions! Not a wonder though, as they are originally native islanders from Villinki island near Helsinki.

Of course, Jake is not the first gardener on Märket. There are also the pretty geraniums, just like in the old times on the lighthouse keeper’s window. Only thing missing are the white curtains, mentioned in historical documents.

Any tasks today? Basic maintenance work, also washing the dishes – which we do only every other day, to save the scarce fire wood.

Now, as the sun goes down, we prepare ourselves for grilling some mushrooms, zucchini and meat. Sleep tight!

Thursday 14.7.2016

Sunny day, and finally with moderate wind (4-5 m/s, south – southeast) – meaning an active day on our islet, after several days of isolation.

In the morning we started to sand down some plaster on the southern wall of the warehouse building. The wall has to be smooth before the next layer of plaster, in order to make it weather-proof. At first, we of course had to build up the scaffolding. Some great excercise that is!

During lunch break Jake tried to make friends with a seal, curled up to sleep on a cliff. For some reason, the seal was not equally enthusiastic about the friendship.

Right after the distracted seal had plunged to the sea, there were other aquatic creatures disembarking on exactly the same cliff.

Two Swedish canoeists, Peter och Gustaf, surprised us by showing up middle from nowhere. It was a pleasant surprise, though, and they paid a visit on the islet. They were heading towards Signilskär, Eckerö and further on till Turku.

But this was only the beginning. As the wind had finally subsided, it was a perfect day for canoing – and there were more visitors to come.

First, Thomas and Björn from Sweden, enjoying the first day of their 9-day trip and also heading towards Eckerö.

And right after them, a Finnish group of seven from canoing organisation Meloja ry. from Lahti area on their way form Stockholm to Turku. For anyone interested, you can actually follow their journey on Facebook. Just find a open group ”Tukholma-Turku -melonta 11.7.” and join!

Märket, our true love!

Friday 15.7.2016

Our last day on Märket has been cloudy and also rainy towards the evening. The wind turned around from south-southeast to north-northwest, varying from 5 m/s around noon to 11 m/s later in the evening.

The first visitor of the day was a Swedish SAR (search and rescue) helicopter, with a thrilling identification number 007. It flew nearby and apparently took photos of Märket. Vice versa. We got a couple of pictures as well.

After so many silent days we were happy to get more company. Teresa and Henrik with their adorable little sailors Sigge (5 years) and Sebor (4 years) from Karjaa, Finland, visited with their sailing boat S/Y Serafina 2.

The boys were interested to find out whether there are any ghosts or moomin trolls living in the lighthouse. Unfortunately we couldn’t find any, not even under the sleeping bag up in the attic bedroom. Thanks to Sebor, we also learned how to say ”lighthouse” and ”lighthousekeeper” in sign language. When on Märket, you always learn something new!