A new group of voluntary workers came to Märket today for the next week. It is a lot of 7 women and 3 men - all ready to do anything for Märket. This week we will introduce in this blog the workers beside the lighthouse and the restoration works.

Our forewoman is Aino. She is originally from very Northern Lapland but lives in Helsinki with her man and dog Elli: both of them are with her on Märket too.

We all are first timers on Märket - Aino too. She has however visited many lighthouses in Finland. She has been a member of the Lighthouse Society for 6 years and visited e.g. Tankar, Norrskär, Sälgrund, "Miss" Yttergrund, Bengtskär - of course - and some others. She has also visited a lot of lighthouses in Estonia when participating trips to Northern Estonian lighthouses organized by the Finnish and Estonian lighthouse societies. She told that the lighthouses are different there.


Aino in the wind

Most of them were in tragic condition but the restoration work had started already. A funny incident happened on the lighthouse of Mohni as the lighthouse guard had no keys nor entrance to the lighthouse.

Aino's plan for the coming week is: work, work and hard work. The head of construction works - who is not here this week - left us a long list of works to do. In addition to them she hopes we could do even more - cleaning etc. Aino thinks that the fact that most of the participants are female is not a problem. Women of today are - if not wiser than the men in everyway - at least capable of many different technical and construction works. And the men can also do cooking which - in fact - is one of the most important duties here!


Saija and Leena carrying salads

Today was sunny in the morning but turned into a rather windy day. Thus we had only two visitors: the young Asmala couple from Pori. The guide from last week's group, Selja gave them - and us - a throrough guided tour to the island. From tomorrow on we have to do the guidening ourselves.

The island is also famous for its cinnamon bunnies which we started to bake today too with a huge succes - at least the bunnies were huge!

Aino, Sirpa, Leena, Tuula, Saija, Klaus, Johanna, Lotta, Juho, Tuomas, Kirsti, Ari ja Elli


Asmalas in the wind