Lake Erie After Dark
Stepping off the edge of a 100-foot-high wooden platform, I do my best not to scream as I glide into the nothingness while attached to a steel cord strung between two trees. The words of one of Long Point Eco-Adventures’ zip line guides are still ringing in my ears: “I just ate a bug,” says Emily, whose voice penetrates the nocturnal airwaves through the speaker of a walkie-talkie. Dylan, our other guide, responds, “It’s just extra protein.”
The adventure of night zipping over Ontario’s Turkey Point Marsh is meaty enough without having to swallow insects along the way. The two-and-a-half hour tour includes eight zip lines, two sky bridges, 14 platforms and a final 40-foot rappel to the forest floor. Unlike zip lining during the day, night zipping doesn’t offer the spectacular views of Long Point Bay and Lake Erie. To be honest, my fear-of-heights husband prefers it that way. “I like the mystery of not knowing where I’m going or how high I am,” he says.
Emily takes the lead, first ensuring there are no obstructions (such as fallen branches) on the high wire that could endanger her or the rest of our six-person group. With all the might her tiny frame can muster, she repeatedly slams her hands on top of the wire, mimicking the seven-note musical ditty “Shave and a Haircut.” A few seconds later, she gets an exact response over the cable, which elicits laughter from the four newbies to the night.
“If [the pattern] returns to us, we know it’s safe,” she says. Then Emily sets off into darkness, disappearing from view. A few minutes later, there’s a brief pause, and then she announces over the walkie-talkie that she’s ready for the next victim (ahem, customer) to proceed.
Dylan straps us onto the cables one by one, sending us off with a wicked laugh normally reserved for horror films. As we approach the opposite platform, Emily waves a hand in front of her glowing red headlamp to signal the end is near. The blinking light tells us to stop, and the red assists our nighttime vision.
Braking with one gloved hand dragging lightly behind the trolley that keeps me securely attached to the wire, I swing onto the platform.
The final zip is 800 feet long, nearly twice the length of the second-longest on the tour. As I step off the platform, I let out a shriek that keeps going and going and going. What the heck? I am living on the edge. I could use the extra protein anyway.
Long Point Eco-Adventures (1730 Front Road, St. Williams, Ontario; 519-586-9300, lpfun.ca) offers night zip lining from 9 to 10:30 p.m. on weekends. The cost is $116 for adults, $90 for kids (ages 8-17).
— Laura Watilo Blake
Aim for the Stars
Long Point Eco-Adventures is at one of the darkest points in southern Ontario, making it a great place for stargazing. The Long Point Observatory ($30 adults, $20 children 17 and under) gives visitors the opportunity to gaze through a giant high-powered telescope at constellations, stars and nebulae not normally visible to the naked eye. On our visit, we were blessed with a new moon and a cloudless night that made Jupiter and its four brightest moons seem close enough to touch. Here are some other places to see stars:
Ritter Planetarium and Brooks Observatory
Shows include a presentation, a question-and-answer session with a resident astronomer and the opportunity to view the skies through a high-powered telescope (weather permitting).
University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio; 419-530-2650, utoledo.edu/nsm/rpbo
Ralph Mueller Observatory
The observatory houses a refracting telescope that dates to 1899.
Cleveland Museum of Natural History, 1 Wade Oval Drive, Cleveland; 216-231-4600, cmnh.org
Schuele Planetarium
Programs are offered at 7 p.m. on the first and third Saturdays of the month. Stargazing follows the show, weather permitting.
Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, 28728 Wolf Road, Bay Village, Ohio; 440-871-2900; lensc.org
Kellogg Observatory
On the roof of the Buffalo Museum of Science, the observatory is open for major astronomical and museum events.
1020 Humboldt Parkway, Buffalo; 716-896-5200, sciencebuff.org
Observatory Park
This provisionally certified Dark Sky Park — one of eight in the world — opened last year. The 1,100-acre park includes the Oberle Observatory. Images from the telescope are projected to another building, which seats up to 150 people. The central plaza has five telescope pads for amateur astronomers.
10610 Clay St., Montville Township, Ohio; 440-286-9516, geaugaparkdistrict.org
— Laura Watilo Blake
Hooked
It’s bright and beautiful outside, but all day I am anxiously eyeing the water from my living room window in hopes that Lake Erie will cooperate for some walleye fishing tonight. So far, it looks good.
My passion for angling is one I share with my husband, Fran. As busy parents of four, we take every possible opportunity to fish as a couple. So when we are blessed with that minor miracle of schedules that are in sync and a favorable weather and marine forecast, we fish for something, somehow, somewhere.
Today is a workday, so our chance to fish will be after 5:30 p.m. This time of year, evening fishing options are trolling for walleyes on our boat or casting for them from the pier in the backyard of our home in Lorain, Ohio. Fran, who is more of an expert angler than I am, says the best time to walleye fish at night is when the water temperature is just below 60 degrees. So basically that means spring and late fall.
By late afternoon, all systems are still go. A half-hour before sunset, armed with our casting rods (7-foot, medium action with 10 pound mono line), our lucky walleye lures (a chrome blue Husky Jerk HJ14; a No. 10 Clown Husky Jerk; a purple Reef Runner and a Pirate Joe), we head to the pier. Our only other equipment is a net, a fish cooler, pliers and clip-on lights on the brims of our caps.
The sunset on Lake Erie is never the same twice. Tonight, it’s vivid pinks and purples. The air smells wonderful — a neighbor must be having a bonfire. The lake, too, is fragrant tonight — a potpourri of fresh weeds, algae and fish permeates the air. We begin to cast, slowly retrieving each one in hopes of feeling that tap, tap, tap that signals a bite. Fran tells me that when I feel as though I’m reeling slow, reel even slower. The quiet and peace are punctuated only by the occasional seagull or great blue heron cry.
Eventually, stars begin to fill the dark sky above us. A passing airplane catches my attention, and I wonder if wherever it’s headed could possibly be as beautiful as where I am right now.
Then it happens: Fran feels the familiar tapping — a fish has bit at his Husky Jerk. He sets the hook hard and shouts for me to get the net. “It’s only about 10 feet out,” Fran tells me. When he reels enough to get the fish 4 feet from the pier, it stubbornly takes off north, trying to escape, even though it’s still hooked. Fran keeps pressure on the line and reels the fish back toward us again. In typical walleye fashion, the fish stays below the water’s surface. Fran’s task is to raise it up to the surface while keeping constant pressure on the line so the fish can’t escape.
At the water’s surface, the fish pauses. This is my cue to net him. I get the net beneath him, and we lift him onto the pier. He’s a monster, Fran exclaims. It’s easily a Fish Ohio (28 inches or more in length), but perhaps even 29 or 30 inches. Our cap lights illuminate the walleye’s eyes, making them glow mysteriously. The fish’s belly and sides are bright white.
We carry him to the house and knock on a window in hopes that the kids can tear themselves away from their TV program long enough to grab a yardstick and our camera. They eventually do, and this impressive toothy creature is 30 inches long. A walleye of this size weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 pounds and can serve as dinner the next evening for our family of six.
Fishing is an exciting and rewarding hobby, as well as a great way to feed a family. So grab a rod and hit the lake, but please don’t stop at our place without calling first. If the weather and the lake cooperate, chances are the sign on our door will read “Gone Fishing!” — Colleen Stack
Fran Stack’s Oregano Walleye
Ten Knots at Night
“I think that’s Venus behind us. Either that or Martians,” jokes the captain, Thor Powell. He and his wife, Debbie, have been pointing out stars and spots of interest on the land. Debbie has also told us to watch for the red lights, as those are the new windmills up and down the shore.
There’s a light, cool evening breeze, and the Nonsuch 26 is gliding along at about 10 knots through smooth, glassy waters. The sky is partially cloudy, but the stars are visible, and the nearly full moon has an ethereal halo.
This moment could be about as close as one gets to heaven on Lake Erie.
If you live along the north shore, you learn there are two camps of boaters: the sailors and the motor boaters. The two never really mix, not even at cocktail parties. The motor boaters are always talking about time, how quickly they can get to Put-in-Bay or Pelee Island. The sailors never talk about time except to joke about how many hours it took to move a few feet one dead-calm day. “We had a competition,” Thor says of a bet with another sailor, “to see who could use the least amount of gas in a summer. He beat me. He used 18 gallons. I had used 24.”
As we leave the harbor, Thor and Debbie work busily, Thor at the helm and Debbie taking care of tie-ropes and such. But now that we’re out in the lake, Thor gently steers, and the Nonsuch 25 does much of the work. If you were to lose sight of the shoreline — which we don’t tonight — you could almost imagine how it feels to drift through space, except for the gentle slapping of the waves against the hull.
Thor and Debbie have been sailing for 30 years. They met in high school in Montreal, got married and bought their first sailboat. Later, they moved to the States and gave up life on the water for a few years. By 2003, they had moved to Brighton, Mich., and the sailing bug bit again. They bought a Shark and then traded up to the Nonsuch, which they sail out of Cedar Island Yacht Club in Kingsville, Ontario.
“Bass live their entire life within a 200-yard radius,” Thor tells us. “I’ve met people in Brooklyn who do the same thing within five or six blocks.”
We slip across the water effortlessly, following the wind instead of barreling into it. Immersed in darkness and enjoying the quiet of a motorless boat, I let my senses take over. The air is fresh and vibrant, and the energy makes me feel a part of something larger, as if the lake were a living thing.
The Powells travel a lot by sail, venturing as far as the north channel of Lake Huron and Gananoque on the far eastern end of Lake Ontario. They travel at night if it’s really hot and they have good winds. They have instruments to navigate, and here on Erie, they know the shoreline, but one of the challenges of night sailing is visibility. In the dark, “you lose your depth perception,” says Debbie.
Night isn’t the most popular time to sail, because late afternoon often brings flat calm, and in the summer, the danger of evening thunderstorms on Lake Erie is always present.
Once in awhile, at 5 or 6 five on a nice summer night, you’ll see a row of sails filling with wind and moving out into the lake. Truth be told, though, it’s unusual to see anybody, says Thor. Debbie vividly remembers one night when they sailed out in the evening and returned in the wee hours of the morning without seeing a soul. “No wind, just stars all around.”
It sounds peaceful, kind of like right now.
— Kim Hutchinson
The Bat Man
Bats get a bad rap.
You know: vampires, rabies and all that. So I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of a Friday night date with my husband that involved intentionally searching out bats at Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pa. Whatever happened to dinner and a movie?
But just an hour into our evening with Presque Isle naturalist Brian Gula, I had changed my mind and was even urging my husband to build a bat house in our backyard. I never realized how interesting bats are and how vital to our ecosystem they are.
Gula has become the bat man of Presque Isle, educating folks like me on the local bat population and how important they are to nature’s balance. Once Gula is done with his talk — just as dusk turns to night — he asks those gathered to spread out around a large vehicle shed. The shed is a roosting spot for female bats and their young, and each year Gula counts the little critters as they come out to start their evening feasting.
And boy do they feast.
One bat can consume as many as 1,200 insects in a night, using a built-in sonar system that is so powerful, it can hone in on an insect 600 yards away, according Gula.
Because water is a breeding ground for insects, bats are often plentiful around water sources like the ponds at Presque Isle, Gula says. To hunt for them yourself, choose a hot and humid summer night near a water source just after dusk.
Gula says you can also help a pest control crew set up shop near you by building a simple bat house where they can roost in the summer months. It’s more important than ever to provide friendly spots because of a recent health threat that has scientists worried about the future of the bat population. A fungus called white nose syndrome is threatening bats around the world.
But in Erie, Gula’s annual count shows that the population is stable. He’s happy with the numbers, and after the majority of the bats have left their roost in the shed — emerging from cracks in the doors, bays and siding — Gula announces that he wants to take the group inside to count the bats still there.
I hold my husband’s hand tight as we enter the dark shed. But then I look up and see a magical sight. A skylight illuminates the remaining bats flying around the top of the shed. They drift peacefully above us, searching out insects that have wandered into their lair.
My fright disappears, and Gula has to urge me toward the exit when it’s time to depart.
As I leave, I’m still squeezing my husband’s hand – not because I’m afraid, but because this hasn’t been such a bad date night after all.
Attract a BatTo get all of the bug-eating benefits of having your own bat, you need to build or buy a bat house. Bat Conservation International offers free plans at batcon.org, including single- and four-chamber homes. To buy an already-built bat home ($79 and up), visit batmanagement.com. To attract the critters, hang your bat house on a heated building in a sunny area. To protect it from predators, hang it at least 15 feet off the ground, and, if you can, hang it near a water source.
— Kara Murphy
A Pelee Island Picnic
I’ve always wanted to check out Pelee Island, but never managed to arrange the flight or take the time for the five-hour ferry ride from Sandusky, Ohio, to the island.
That’s why the special excursion to Pelee offered by the super speedy Jet Express caught my eye. The ferry departs Port Clinton, Ohio, at 5 p.m. and arrives on Pelee an hour later. The ride home is even faster, departing Pelee at 10 p.m. and arriving in Sandusky 45 minutes later.
The trip itself is just long enough to enjoy the views of the lake and order a drink from the ferry’s bar. Upon our arrival, we make a brief stop at customs and then walk the half mile or so to the Pelee Island Winery. There is a bus waiting to take passengers there, but the winery is just down a quiet road that hugs the lake, offering a nice chance to stretch our legs and enjoy a new view of the lake.
At the winery, a selection of hors d’ouvres waits on the outdoor patio, as well as a wine tasting inside the winery. A picnic of barbecue chicken, pulled pork, veggies and dessert comes next. The food is good, the wine even better.
Four hours is just the right amount of time to wander the grounds of the winery and enjoy the wine and food, but bus or taxi tours of the island were available for those looking to see more of Pelee.
Reservations are required for the Pelee Island Wine Tasting and Dinner, which is Aug. 3 this year. Visit jet-express.com or call 1-800-245-1538. The price is $85 per person.
— Colleen Smitek