The members of our group are of very different ages. Yesterday we introduced Johanna who is the youngest of us and today we talk with Leena who is about 30 years older.

Leena is a music teacher - which we could have guessed having heard her sing. She is also the grandmother of two little boys: Daniel, 5 years, and Joel, 3 years. Daniel was thrilled to hear that granny is going to labour camp to a lighthouse. First he wondered what is a lighthouse and then how granny will manage there.

Leena is also a sailor but her experience is from the lakes. She has taken part in a sailing course and organized herself a course: the elements of boating. She has a boat too but her husband is not a sailing person. During the studies Leena worked one summer on a sight-seeing boat near Helsinki. There she organized the catering and other technmical matters. And entertained the customers by singing and playing guitar!

Leena came to Märket because she wanted to visit the lighthouse and an islet where there is hardly any vegetation. (Opposite to her laborious summer house garden.) She also likes to watch the boats in the middle of the sea. In advance she was afraid to be the sole granny among young boys. But she took the risk and it turned out that there are other grandmothers too. She was also surprised that the majority of the participants are women.


Leena washing dishes

We are rotating tasks and today Leena was in the kitchen. Earlier she has cleaned the walls, assorted wastes, searched little stones for the wave breaker, brushed old concrete waste, cleaned indoors, carried dishes up and down the rather steep stairs and carried water from the sea. She has also taken a tent sauna. And she was happy about the chance to visit also Sweden during this holiday!

Leena thinks that she could come also another time to Märket and visit other lighthouses too with the Lighthouse Society.

Today we had only one visitor but even more worthy. It was Pekka on his handmade wooden sailing boat, modified skärgårdskryssare Aallotar. The building of the boat took him five years but it is a real beauty. Besides being very seaworthy the boat shows so good craftmanship that everybody was charmed. Pekka masters also other skills and succeeded to locate the oil leak in the building which has puzzled us for a longer time.


Tuula, Pekka and Aallotar

We in our turn proceeded to the old cellar and sauna in the basement. It was full of rubbish and dirt and it took a while to get rid of it all. We found a beautiful tile red-and-white tile floor. The space with vaulted ceiling gave us the idea of Märket's own wine brand. At the moment we have only a tent sauna, and there are plans for a new sauna in the second floor. But what will be made of the old sauna we don't know yet.

The most interesting animal visitors today were a fishing black guillemot, a razorbill which stayed for hours in the Northern harbour and (at last) a resting seal on the warm rocks of the eastern end of the island.



Siida of Märket