“Please–we want s’mores!”

Saturday, January 20

We could hear the splashing of Chatterbox Falls as we prepared to slip into our beds, and before I retired to my aft-cabin bed, I spent a few minutes inching around Braesail’s deck, enjoying the cascade’s wonderful “water music” and noticing the wide fan, mistily visible in the soft glow of the snow-light, created by the falls and its reflection in the water below it. Magical!

Saturday brought us an occasionally rainy, relatively mild day during which, after a lovely brunch of Norwegian waffles, Martin and Karen rowed our inflatable dinghy, Coracle, around the inlet, taking stunning photos as they went (a sampling is available on Martin Knowles’ Facebook page). After their return, Martin flew his drone over Chatterbox Falls and around the inlet as the ice falls turned to waterfalls and avalanches of snow, ice, mud, and brush thundered down the cliffs. Hans took his ax and did some brush-clearing on the trail from the bank to the spacious picnic shelter near Chatterbox Falls (now mostly thawed and chattering much more loudly!) and brought our bundle of kindling and heavier firewood to the fire pit in its center. Walt and I enjoyed reading our books and writing mail to be sent later.

After a satisfying supper of lasagna and salad, we carefully picked our way along the slippery dock, up the steep metal ramp, along a trail, across a bridge over a gurgling stream, and around a fallen tree to the shelter where Martin and Hans had lit a wonderful toasting fire for marshmallows. The s’mores we produced, as the nearby falls roared its approval of our efforts, were extraordinarily delicious!

The tide had fallen during our fireside fun, and the ramp from the bank down to the dock was even steeper than it had been on our way to the shelter, but we all crunched our way safely back to Braesail and clambered aboard after a splendid day!