First base camp day!! No takedown, woot woot! It rained from about 5am to 9am, but we didn’t care. We set up my hammock tarp to sit under, in a lower area, about 100ft from at the fire grate. Of course, the rain stopped right after we did. The sun came out and stayed! It actually got kinda hot and we hung out hiding from the sun under the tarp after breakfast (different kind of oatmeal).

We fished off the shore and got nothing from about 11am to noon. Then we heard a float plane, and it ended up flying right over Cherry, did some loops around where we couldn’t see, and then we couldn’t hear it. Then we heard the engines fire up again, and the plane took off and flew right over the cliffs on Cherry, right by our site, in an amazing low pass. The loud roar of the engines echoed deeply throughout the lake. It was an epic sight! We managed to get it on our GoPros. I will see if I can get a clip of it up on YouTube.

About 45 minutes later, a canoe of 2 guys came by and told us they were with the DNR, got dropped off by the float plane, and were doing a gill net fishing survey of Cherry, Topaz, and Amoeber! They were the first people we had seen since we got out of the SAK. They got the narrows site, so the previous occupants must have left earlier that morning. We chatted with the DNR dudes for a bit and then they left. We ended up seeing them a few times, including our day out of Cherry - they are fast paddlers!

I went looking for firewood sometime after lunch while F hung out in his hammock. I managed to find a nice downed cedar off the ground that gave us enough firewood for almost 2 nights. It was surprisingly dry! Always a nice feeling. I bucked it up with my Silky Gomboy into manageable lengths, quickly limbed each segment with my hatchet, and carried the 3 or 4 long segments back to camp. We sawed and split everything in not too much time! I love me some good firewood processing.

Later that day, I put up my hammock and enjoyed a little shade. I tried to take a nap but there was a fly outside my hammock that really wanted to be my friend and kept flying all around my hammock. Oh well, it was a nice hang regardless.

We did dinner kinda early and got everything cleaned up before it was dark. With little fuss, we got a fire going with the fruits of our labor earlier in the day. We got my 10x50 binoculars mounted on a monopod and watched the water striders on the calm lake. There must have been hundreds all moving in concert. Some danced left, some danced right. We watched in awe at the pink and purple sunset on the reflection of the lake for what felt like 20 or 30 minutes. Even when it seemed too dark to see them on the lake with just your eyes, the binoculars seemed to amplify available light. It was an incredible experience.

Not long after, it was truly dark. I think these might be the darkest skies I’ve ever seen. Many nebulae, star clusters, and large galaxies were easily visible to the naked eye. It was a new moon so there was no wash out from moonlight either. Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter all reflected off the lake, as did the thousands of stars in the Milky Way. It was a humbling view. My mounted binoculars were an excellent addition to this, showing thousands of stars no matter where you pointed them. I am grateful to have experienced these skies in such preferable conditions.

We poured some whiskey and decided to make s’mores. Somehow, some graham crackers had survived in the barrel, as I had hoped. We had enough for 2 s’mores each! They were amazing, with perfectly cooked marshmallows, and they weren’t even messy either! All in all it was a great day on a beautiful lake. Weather was great with very calm winds, food was great, and the night was great, with bone dry wood for a perfect crackling fire. This was an ideal day in the Boundary Waters, I think.