Dan and Hannah Bike Peaks Island in the Portland, ME harbor

Hannah and I have made some fortuitous decisions in our nearly 40 years together.  One of ours was thirty years ago when we just picked up with two girls under the age of three with no jobs and moved East from Arizona because we wanted to live in a small town in New England.  Winner, winner, chicken dinner.  Living in Maine, we still have many places to explore and experience.  Peaks Island in the Portland harbor is one such a place.  

Packing our bikes on the back of our Hyundai Elantra Blue, we drive the Maine Turnpike 45 minutes north to Portland to meet up with our sister-in-law Becky.  Riding down Commercial Street along the waterfront on this Memorial Day Sunday, we three see a small city alive with locals and tourists enjoying the sunshine and mid-60s.  As we approach the terminal for the Casco Bay Lines, we learn this is Reggae Sunday on the island, which might explain the many young folks waiting with us.

Vacation goers boarding the Peaks Island Ferry

Roundtrip ferry tickets to Peaks Island cost $7.70 each; an additional $6.50 per bike.  Aboard the 315P ferry that is packed with these Reggae-loving under thirtysomethings, we are prepared for the afternoon sea breeze; though in shorts, I wear a short and a long sleeve tee shirt and sweatshirt, with biking tights in my backpack, if things turn really cold.  With water temperatures in the 50s, the sea can kick up a wind that feels like early April in New England.   We’ve been caught poorly clothed when biking on the coast before and will not make the same mistake today.

Becky and Hannah

The mere fifteen minute three mile ferry ride has us in view of Peaks Island in no time. 

Peaks Island harbor

We disembark and turn right on Island Avenue at the Inn of Peaks Island to escape the music loving throngs exiting left for the weekly Sunday Reggae concert at Jones Landing just to the left of the Ferry dock.  A week ago, two dear Hispanic friends came for the weekend.  They noticed that they didn’t see another Hispanic person in York and Ogunquit the entire time.  On the other hand, multi-culturalism is alive and well in Portland.  Why, Portland High School has 1,000 students that come from 41 countries and speak 26 languages!

There is a vacation vibe to the Island as we begin our counterclockwise circumnavigation on Seashore Avenue.  Houses are nestled close together with a community feel to the landscape.   Peaks Island is home to 800+ year round residents, but in the summer its population swells to 6,000.  We venture sideways off Seashore Avenue on dirt roads, which head to the water in every direction.     

Riding side by side by side, we three find even on a “what’s happening” summer day there is just light car and truck traffic as well as golf carts from Island Tours on the road.  The pace is slow and unhurried as you might find in Key West in the off season.  I get the feeling some great work of literature or fine painting could come from professionals summering on Peaks Island.   Artist?  Writer?  Consider coming here for your next masterpiece.  I don’t notice any B and B's and the Inn on Peaks Island is the one obvious hotel.  Friends with a summer house are a must if you want to spend the night.

Taking country roads to see funky 50s vacation housing, I don’t remember seeing one garage.  Fact is many places don’t even have lawns to pull cars in on.  Taxis wait at the dock ready to take visitors wherever they want. 

Our bike ride on this four mile island rolls on in exploration, not hell-bent-for-exercise mode.  Despite the name, we never see one peak, let alone peaks.  There’s a rise in the road here and there, but no peak.  Riding the rocky coast, we three could be in Boothbay or Bar Harbor further up the coast of Maine. 

With the relaxed pace, vacation vibe, and close proximity of the houses, I wonder what sort of community is here.   Are they more connected to each other because of their isolation?

I don’t know if you have the same romantic notion that Hannah and I did that every New England town has a village green, a smithy, and a farmer’s market; a community feel like you wished you had, but don’t.  We moved East from Tempe, AZ to escape the May through October heat that isolates people in the desert southwest.  There, heat keeps people inside in their air-conditioned homes, who then venture out in their air-conditioned cars to their air-conditioned schools or places of work.  When we would take Molly and Robyn in their strollers on our suburban Tempe streets during the day, we wouldn’t see a soul.  And yet in York, we do have friends from work and church, but our neighborhood of 30 years is not the dreamy community we thought we’d find.

With the 5P ferry arriving in fifteen minutes, we head for the dock.  Hundreds have already massed for the three mile ferry ride back to Portland.  Most of the crowd are 20s and 30s and very happy, and by that I mean their sole reason to come to Peaks Island seems to be to party on this sunny Memorial Day Sunday. 

Once the gate to the ferry opens, the masses ooze blob-like onto the ferry.  Suddenly, with some 125 people still in front of us, the ferry crew cuts off any more access to the ferry.  Stunned and having literally “missed the boat,” we hear rumors of another ferry chugging our way.  In fact, we see a smaller ferry coming to port.  The officer I seek out explains that this smaller ferry can pick up 50 to 200 passengers depending how many are already on board.   As the swarm descends the gangplank, we come up ten people short.  We are 90^th in line when only 80 fit on board. 

First, figuring we’ll make the most of our time and ride some more, we back up our bikes but then quickly decide that leaving our place in line for the 6P ferry is not a good idea.  We choose to wait with our bikes in a sea of very happy people, who are not surly or angry by any means because of missing the 5P ferry; they are just highly motivated to make the 6P ferry back to the mainland. 

At 545P the ferry is spotted and we three are squeezed even more in a ham sandwich fashion.  Our bikes become obstacles in this sea of humanity.    

I wonder about mob psychology because these happy people are not going to be denied.  The glasses of the young man in front of me flip off as three in front of us try to rescue and lift a dog caught in this mass of humanity.  I grab his glasses and hand them back.  Pushed from behind, I soon learn my front tire is squarely on the toe of a young woman in toeless sandals.  I had no idea til someone tells me, but she’s not upset and rolls with it (pun!). Moving quickly to remove the tire off her toe, I am swept forward as the tide of people moves me toward the ferry.  There’s nothing I can do.  At this point the guy I helped with the glasses says, Let the bikes through.  Becky and I disentangle our chains and edge forward.   Hannah has long since been swept twenty feet ahead.

On the gangplank we have room to breathe and only when we cross onto the boat do I know we are going to make it.  Behind us, 150 are not getting on.  Though there is room for more to stand behind the cars, we gather that there are not enough life jackets for them and us who are already on the ferry.  Of course, we have no idea where these life jackets are, but that’s of little concern at this moment.  We are on the ferry!

We three bundle up for the ferry ride home knowing that we’ve had an experience that adds quality and perspective to life.  It’s another mini-fortuitous decision.

PS: Don’t visit Peaks Island on Reggae Sunday.