Adventure on Peak's Island

On Monday we took a trip to Peaks Island, an island in Casco Bay just outside of Portland's harbor. We traveled on a Casco Bay ferry boat similar to the one pictured below. Unfortunately the weather on Monday was not as sunny and beautiful as the day pictured below (I took the photo from Google images because I forgot to take one myself), but the ferry boat is similar to the one we traveled on.

We caught the ferry on Portland's waterfront and the trip over to Peak's took about 20 minutes. The most interesting part of the ferry ride was observing the trucks traveling over to the island, particularly the construction vehicles and trucks carrying heavy construction equipment. Since the only way to travel to Peak's is by boat everything must be transported via water. On the return trip back to Portland the ferry was filled with what looked to be island residents pulling wheeled shopping carts next to them. I overheard two families (with children along) discussing how they were going to town to run their errands. What a different life!

I'm guessing there were a couple of hundred homes on the island, which is 3 miles by 1 mile in size. Many of the homes were clustered in the small town area near the ferry dock, with others surrounding the perimeter of the island. This was the view from the ferry dock towards "town".

And the view from the dock to the right of the dock back out to the bay.

While we could have taken a car over to Peak's that would have been silly given the island's small size. And since we had taken the kids on a relatively long walk the day before at Prout's Neck we decided to do something different (and fun!) for our tour of Peak's. We rented a golf cart!

We enjoyed a leisurely drive on the sole road that travels the perimeter of the island. There were a few golf carts on the road, but it appeared as if most of the locals and tourists were traveling either on foot or by bicycle.

The day was not picturesque due to the low gray clouds, but we still enjoyed beautiful rocky ocean views and climbing over the rocks.

I also enjoyed seeing the different architecture styles used on the homes on Peak's. While most were not as grand as the mansions we saw out at Prout's Neck, they were lovely nevertheless. Notice how this home is decorated all over with old lobster buoys.

John begged and begged (and begged!) until Scott let him take a turn at the wheel of the golf cart. We pulled to a side road for this adventure and Scott had control over the pedals so it was pretty safe.

Look mom, no hands! And, no, I did not ask him to wave at me when I took the picture! We'll have to teach John never to take his hands off the wheel once he can do damage with a real vehicle.

I have no more photos to share from Peak's because once we looped the island and made it back to town for lunch it started to rain. And every time we thought the rain had lightened up enough so that we could venture back out for another loop it started raining harder. (See that little roof on the golf cart above the seats? It does not shield you from rain drops falling down as you drive slowly in a golf cart - lesson learned). So after we enjoyed a lovely lunch at one of the town's three restaurants we hung out in the touristy gift shop (for over an hour!) waiting for the next ferry back to Portland. We read every lobster joke on every trinket for sale in the gift shop and shivered from the cool air after getting soaked (another lesson learned, ponchos are needed when visiting new england). And then we returned back to Portland and the kids and Scott went swimming in the (indoor) hotel pool while I ran on the treadmill so that we could all warm up.

Later that evening we met up with my mom and dad for dinner at a fun seafood restaurant. Amelia and John had fun posing with the fisherman statue outside.

Despite the relatively poor weather conditions, the second day of our vacation was filled with lots of good times and unique to new england scenery. More ahead with adventures from our last day in Maine.