"Put-in Bay- A photographer's paradise! " a Put-in-Bay Travel Page by abi_maha

Some of our friends had already visited this place and we went expecting to have a day of outdoor & water sports at Put-in Bay in the Great lakes area of Ohio. On the contrary the trip turned out to be a photography expedition for us- birds, flowers, butterflies and snakes all made for a heady combination for us photography lovers! Top that with a sudden storm and a drive back in some heavy downpur with hardly any visibility and you have our trip report in a nut shell :)
Ok, so let me start at the beginning...when AJ suggested we head out to Put-in Bay as usual I began researching on VT, fodors and other travel sites for info. Surprisingly I found very few trip reports on the same and most that only talk of Broadwalk, Parasailing and Jet skiing here! There really is so much more to this small island as we discovered. So I am going to include in the introduction itself a small trip report of our visit in chronological order so that anyone else looking to visit will have an idea of what all we can do once we get there in one day!

It is a small village on the South Bass Island in Ottawa County, Ohio, USA. The name is probably derived from 'Pudding Bay' since it is shaped like a pudding sack. This village played a significant role in 1812, where under US naval commander Mr oliver Hazard Perry, US troops conquered a significant win over the British and Indian troops in the Battle of Lake Eerie. It is a fairly small island with a total area of .6 square miles. It reminded us of NZ as it's primary industry is tourism and the season runs from April till October. The most common means of transportation within the island is golf carts :) We sure enjoyed driving around one :D

We reached Port Clinton from Columbus in about a couple of hours at 10 am. It was a bright sunny morn, the waters looked so cool and inviting we couldn't wait to gdet to the island. After parking at the Miller's Ferry parking lot we bought our ferry tickets ($24 return for both of us) and headed into the tourism info office next door to collect some leaflets on the island (we always do this whereever we go). Turns out we didn't need any of it as the Miller's ferry personnel gives you all the catalogs and freebie/discount coupons they offer on the islands before you head into the ferry. They really are very sweet that ways.
A 20 min calm ride over the waters took us to the Miller's docking point next to the light house in put-in Bay. We quickly walked to the ECarts rentals a lil further from the docking point to get our cart ($50 for a day) after using the $5 off coupon from what the Miller's gave us. Then we headed to the first point on the map on our way- The South Bass Island State park. From there we went to the Butterfly House which is next to the perry Caves as well, but we didn't do the caves. Then we saw the chocolate museum on the way as well as crossed the Broadwalk to get to the Perry Peace memorial. The heat got to us when the guard in the meorial gave us a very valuable tip about the visitor's center. So we headed there next. After half an hour there we grabbed a quick lunch at the bakery nearby before carting to the Oak Picnic Spot for more pics. As we headed down for the Parasailing a sudden turnaround in the weather caught us unawares. A storm! Caught right in the middle of it and unable to get off the road we were drenched head to toe and I thought I would die of Hypothermia before we decided to brave the rain and head to the nearest shelter. We reached the docking point with great difficulty, bought some change of clothes and decided to head out of Put-in Bay- by around 6:30 pm. So thats a short trip report. All details of what we did and why we love this place in the things to do. Hope you enjoy this trip of our's as much as we did! :)