DHL Ashburn Creek

Very pleasant night last night, with a low temperature of 55 degrees. Today was very windy with winds out of the SW, and a high of 72. Left our anchorage around 8:15a and dropped anchor around 5p. Today was filled with good and bad for me. First the good. After breakfast, I pulled anchor and beached C-Traveler a short distance away to go hike to the Mitchell Creek Falls. Bill and Mike had hiked over to these yesterday. Mike and Bill meanwhile had left their boats at 7am to go hike up to the house that I saw yesterday. We were all back to our boats by a little after 8, and headed out. I enjoyed seeing the Falls myself and was interesting to see several streams combine into the one before it entered the cove we were in. Interesting too that the one main fall originated from springs coming out of the mountain. While I had no service all evening and night, I woke up to one bar of cell service. Enough data to upload my blog this morning from last evening, and even to stream my church service from back home. God probably had something to do with that.  Mike and Bill found one of those large, 6’ x 12’ mats you see people on at the beach or behind their boats. Too large however to retrieve and take home. I missed seeing that as I was busy cleaning up. More about that in the bad. Bill spotted another fender and pointed it out to me. I was able to beach C-Traveler amongst a bunch of logs and branches, and go retrieve the Fender. Another one I can use.  Saw some kind of hawk or falcon in a tree along the shore, and a Blue Heron that took flight right after I got it’s picture. Ok, now the bad. After retrieving the fender, I managed to trip and fall while returning to the boat. Scraped my arm up pretty good. I was busy cleaning it and my knee, up with some baby wipes rather than following Bill and Mike into the cove with the floating mat. Later, I stopped and anchored in a cove for a few minutes while making my lunch. I only put out the anchor chain of 20’, rather than adding some of the anchor rode. During a gust of wind, the anchor drug a little bit, and when I went to raise it, it appeared to have caught something and wouldn’t come all the way into the bow roller. I caught up to Mike and Bill and they said it looked like a large black ball. Mike and I beached in the next cove, and while I was trying to get turned around with the wind pushing me farther in the shallows, and not hitting Little Joe, I dung the prop on the bottom. Although it doesn’t look like I did any damage to the prop. Finally beached, I let out the anchor chain (I have a windless) and Mike carried the anchor away from the boat and cleaned off what was a bunch of muddy vegetation.
We pressed on with the day, watching a fisherman retrieve his fishing floats. Basically a very short section of pool noodle with a fishing line attached to it. We see a lot of these that have apparently floated away or no longer attended. Also been seeing a number of rope swings folks use in the summer to swing into the lake. Passed one large marina today, the Willow Grove Dock and Resort. Another large marina with a large number of house boats. Also saw what looked like a ferry barge. We looked at possibly anchoring behind the marina, but decided to go a little farther. This evening we are anchored on Ashburn Creek next to the Lillydale Recreation Area. There is another barge and tug at the park dock here, that belongs to the Army Corp of Engineers. We tucked away into some smaller coves this evening for protection from the forecasted severe thunderstorms and high winds expected to hit around midnight.Read more