Explore Misery Bay and the Interior Lagoons of Presque Isle State Park on This Free Pontoon Ride
Since 1985, the state has offered free public tours of Presque Isle State Park’s bays and interior ponds.
Temperatures peaked at a perfect 78 degrees under clear skies last August as we motored into Graveyard Pond to begin our pontoon boat tour of Misery Bay and the interior lagoons of Presque Isle State Park.
You really can’t get a better deal than this — it’s a free 45-minute tour, staffed by volunteers with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Operated since 1985, the tours typically run from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
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Our guide, Paul Weiser, is one of the longest-serving among about 375 volunteers who help support operations in Presque Isle — the most visited state park in Pennsylvania. Presque Isle offers a recreational utopia for beachgoers, swimmers, boaters, paddleboarders, kayakers, anglers, hikers, birdwatchers, cyclists, kite-flyers, in-line skaters and more. It celebrates its 103rd birthday as a state park on May 27.
Brian Gula, DCNR environmental education specialist, says the state uses the pontoon tours as a tool to showcase all the work that’s been done to preserve the area’s wetlands, and also to focus on the wildlife. “The great thing for the public,” he says, “is that they get to see [the wildlife] so close off that pontoon boat.”
During our trip, Weiser handed out binoculars and passed around various turtle shells, a hefty beaver pelt and photos of the birds and wildlife that we might see.
In Graveyard Pond, we saw map, blanding and painted turtles sunning themselves on logs, which the DCNR anchored in the middle of the pond for optimal visibility. The turtles love to sunbathe, Weiser says, because they are cold-blooded and it helps warm them. (They hibernate in the mud in the winter.)
Then we navigated under a bridge into Misery Bay, with the 101-foot Perry Monument on Crystal Point rising to our right. The monument honors American naval Commander Oliver Hazard Perry, whose fleet of 11 ships defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie on Sept. 10, 1813, at Put-in-Bay, near Sandusky, Ohio.
Six of 11 of the vessels were built in the Presque Isle bay — at the time named Little Bay — where the shores and waters of the peninsula protected them during construction, according to the DCNR. After the battle, the fleet returned to Little Bay to repair the ships and seek medical treatment for the wounded. Conditions became so harsh during the following winters that many of Perry’s crew died and, according to legend, were buried in Graveyard Pond (hence the name). To mark those hardships, Little Bay was renamed Misery Bay.
It might be surprising to learn that the 3,200-acre Presque Isle is a shifting sand spit that is always eroding. Historical records show that it became an island in Lake Erie five times when the strip connecting it to the mainland eroded away; the longest period as an island lasted from 1835 to 1866, Gula says.
Over the years, the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies have made many improvements to help stabilize the peninsula. The waters were not always as pristine as they are today; the U.S. Department of State under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement designated Presque Isle Bay an Area of Concern in 1991 because of years of pollution. The 25-square-mile bay watershed had been contaminated with excessive nutrients, organic compounds and heavy metals from discharges of wastewater from industrial plants and municipal sources.
After much cleanup and once new environmental regulations were put into place, the area was delisted as an Area of Concern in 2013, but it’s still closely monitored by the state Department of Environmental Protection, with federal support.
The latter part of our pontoon tour moved into the interior lagoons and ponds, flush with lily pads and native flowers, such as the pink swamp smartweed. Even though I have visited Presque Isle many times, I had never seen the interior ponds, which give visitors a different view from the paved path along the peninsula’s perimeter.
If the water level is high enough, the boat can venture into Long Pond, which is more than a ½-mile from the pontoon dock. There you’ll see a steady stream of paddle boarders and kayakers exploring the coves.
Gula says that the interior waterways were reopened only recently after the state rid them of two invasive species from Europe — large reed grasses called phragmites and narrow-leaf cattails — that had completely consumed the inner channels. “There’s a lot more open water compared to 15 years ago,” he says.
Ospreys returned to the area about five years ago, and there are beavers, coyotes and river otters, says Weiser.
The open water is “one of the reasons the public are now seeing osprey nests and other species, more wading birds and other wildlife activity,” Gula says. “An osprey cannot hunt in a wetland that is consumed by a plant like phragmites because it’s so dense.”
As a National Natural Landmark — a program administered by the National Park Service — Presque Isle also is a waystation for migrating birds.
Of the pontoon tours, Gula says: “It’s a great way for us to get our mission across, which is to protect and conserve the natural resources for all future generations to enjoy.”
Know Before You Go
- The pontoon boats, which seat 16 people, launch from a covered pavilion with seating next to the private Presque Isle Boat Rental. After you pass the Perry Monument, the road to the launch is on the left side of Thompson Drive. Signups are 15 minutes before the tour, first come first served, although visitors should arrive early to secure a spot. There are no advance registrations.
- As Memorial Day approaches, check the Presque Isle State Park calendar of events for the summer pontoon schedule. For questions, call 814-833-7424.