What it was like to spend a week alone on a Swedish island

Although she is passionate about her work, Enroth said that its demanding nature means that the prospect of time alone at sea – without a cell phone and with only the endless sea, unlimited air and an abundance of films for company – ‘ had a clear allure. .

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Enroth told CNN on January 27, just after finding out she had been selected from about 12,000 applicants to spend a week on the Swedish island of Hamneskär.

Hamneskär is located on the coast of Marstrand in western Sweden, home to an impressive cast-iron lighthouse called Pater Noster, which means ‘Our Father’ in Latin – a reference to the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ often pronounced by sailors sailing through the rough sea around island.

Although Enroth knew of Pater Noster, after studying for a year in nearby Gothenberg, she had never been there and was nervous and excited about the experience.

First impressions

On January 30, Enroth boarded a small boat with a single helmsman to begin her journey to the island.

Her heart was pounding.

According to her, the trip to the island was wonderful – sea, air and snow stretched out in front of her.

And her first look at the Pater Noster lighthouse, drawn in the distance, was unforgettable.

“The first impression of the island? Nice, small, just quiet.”

Left alone, Enroth closed the door of her lighthouse and sat down on the couch.

Initially, she hears the sound of the boat departing, engine roaring. Then, nothing.

“It was so quiet. It was as if someone had turned off the sound. ‘

As she listens louder, she picks up the whistling wind, birds swing over the lighthouse and the waves fall on the rocks.

Enroth puts on her warmest clothes and decides to explore her surroundings, walk the perimeter of the island and climb the 130 steps to the top of Pater Noster.

She takes a deep breath and gets ready to enjoy the week ahead.

Living in isolation

Enroth normally lives alone, but her health care work at the front means she spends a lot of time interacting with people on a daily basis.

“I was really looking forward to just trying to reflect and stand still,” she says.

Jonas Holmberg, artistic director of the Gothenburg Film Festival, told CNN Travel that for safety reasons there was one more person on the island, but that they had to keep their distance.

The lighthouse cabin that became Enroth’s home this week was recently refurbished by design agency Stylt, so it was not only stylish, but also well-equipped.

Holmberg said a soft bed and good food were part of the deal. “It’s not about surviving,” he added.

As a movie buff, Enroth has seen all the lighthouse films that quickly fall into horror, and that have played out in her mind. Especially because she’s afraid of the dark.

That first night, after the sun had set to illuminate the clouds in a copper haze, the island was soon shrouded in darkness.

Enroth tries to sleep, but struggles, and her ears tune to any unusual noise in the cottage.

But waking up at sunrise made the drowsiness quickly fade into the background, and she decided to make sunrise part of her island routine.

Every morning she watches the sun rise, and then eats breakfast in her kitchen.

“The sunlight is incredible,” Enroth says.

There was an on-site gym that Enroth uses every day – though nothing beats up and down the lighthouse several times a day to get her heart pumping.

“After I went up for the first time, I went down again, and I had to stay there for a while because my head was just turning,” she laughs.

On the ground, Enroth was having a second breakfast and getting ready to enjoy the day while scheduling at the Gothenburg Film Festival, but also painting, walking and creating a video diary.

Enroth, as indicated, left her cell phone and laptop on dry ground. Being without them was a liberating experience, a relief, she says.

“It was great not being connected to your phone and just watching a movie without the distraction.”

Because she could not Google anything, she realized how accustomed we are to getting all the answers in hand. In her video diary for Day 5, Enroth talked about a number of questions that floated in her mind that she just had to leave (“Where do crayfish sleep? How do they sleep?”)

Unable to check the news, or to read the news of loved ones, Enroth’s imagination began to blow. She was worried that the coronavirus would worsen further in her absence.

“I thought of the apocalypse,” she says. “Your mind starts to make things up, ‘What if it happened? And this and that could have happened …’

Producing the video diary was also a new experience for her – Enroth has a Facebook account but says she’s not much of a social media user and that she had little experience filming herself with the camera.

“I don’t think I ever got used to it,” she says.

Enroth still enjoyed having an outlet for her mind. One of the strangest things, she says, was watching movies and not being able to book in person or online.

“I had to try to process [the movies] alone, and that means they stayed with me for a long time. And I’ve never dreamed of so many weird things. ‘

Highlights of the film program for Enroth included ‘A Song Called Hate’, a documentary about the Eurovision Song Contest and the Taiwanese drama ‘Days’.

Enroth enjoyed watching her film to the fullest. She becomes aware that it was easy to go to her phone, or to be distracted by something in the house, when she was watching movies at home, even the ones she really enjoyed. Not so on the island.

All in all, she reckons she’s watched about 30 feature films, along with a handful of shorts.

Lessons of isolation

Enroth was alone on the island, but she emphasizes that it was pleasant because it was her privilege.

“I think about it are all the people who do not choose to be alone, and they are forced to be alone – and it’s so much harder than I did. What I did was just enjoyable,” she says.

Enroth returned home on February 7 and returned to work the next day on a night shift.

She says it’s a good experience to be in the hospital again, and she knows that island life will quickly disappear into the distance.

“But I also think the island taught me not to chase so much,” Enroth says.

“Of course there will be stress and things like that at work. But in my free time I think I will feel better if I just take it a little slow. Just relax for a while.”