On Pelee Time

 

That's the saying of the locals as the ferry only comes to the island a couple times a day and it's pretty laid back. Below is a picture of a native American rock design with the HMS Jimaan in the background; the view almost Mediterranean in appearance.

 

Our ferry deposited us at the dock and we drove the dusty dirt road for about 10 miles to our B&B. We arrived at "Pelee Places" about 8pm Tuesday night and our host, Bev, over a couple of glasses of wine showed us around the house.

This is about a 1500 square foot house with three bedrooms and two baths. We had booked the master suite with an ensuite bath and king sized bed. Bev has several properties and lives elsewhere on the island so we were alone in the house for Tuesday night.

The view below is from the front room where we were served breakfast the next two mornings ... awesome view of Lake Erie to the east and of the ship channel. Bev's banana bread French toast was the hit of the morning's meal ... as well as an omelet.

Then off to the Pelee Island Winery which was the real reason for the visit. The grapes are grown on 600 acres on the island then shipped over to the mainland to be processed into wine.

This place has a rich history of crops ranging from the grapes, to tobacco, to potatoes and other fruits and vegetables due to a very mild climate controlled by the shallow lake which surrounds it.

The wine toast for the day was after our informative tour of the facility. You could eat there by buying the raw BBQ materials and then cooking them yourself in the pavilion in the background, but as the day was about 90 degrees we opted for one of the few low-key joints in the little town by the dock. There are only about 300 full time residents of the place so facilities are pretty sparse.

We had toured all day Wednesday to the winery, the museum, and to the farthest point south on the island, where we were at the southernmost point of Ontario and therefore Canada.

As we were to leave on Thursday it was fitting for nature to give us this spectacular sunset as we sat at the rear of the B&B. The house sits on the northernmost spit of land by the lighthouse and you literally can stand in the same spot to see the sun set and rise; of course you might want to sleep in-between, eh.

On Thursday we did the 5 hour trek back up through Toronto to our place in Barrie ... between Detroit and the island it was a fun couple of days.