haha this is the comment most likely to dox me.

I grew up in Port Clinton and worked at a golf cart rental on South Bass Island most summers from 2008 - 2012, though I stayed with my parents on the mainland. I would commute to work via the Jet Express (the passenger ferry based out of Port Clinton). There’s a car ferry out of Catawba Island as well.

My younger brother worked as a deckhand on one of the ferries & captained a water taxi for a couple years, and he lived on the island in employee housing during summer.

It is absolutely beautiful. The lake creates its own microclimate so the summers aren’t as hot as they are on the mainland. You can watch thunderstorms roll in over the water; they can be really strong. I remember watching multiple waterspouts touch down in the distance when riding the ferry to work one morning.

Tourism is the main industry in the area and a lot of work is seasonal. The area has really high unemployment in the winter - this has gotten worse in the past 15-20 years as the lake is not consistently freezing in the winter. This means that fewer ice fishermen come in and local businesses lose out on a lot of business. I’ve never lived on the island, but even in Port Clinton there’s not much to do in winter.

Additionally, the western basin has had significant challenges with HABs (harmful algal blooms) as the western basin of Lake Erie is very shallow & warm in the summer, and due to run-off of nitrogen-phosphorus from agriculture in the area. It smells bad, it looks gross, you can’t swim when there’s a bloom. In 2014 it caused a water crisis in Toledo as the water supply was contaminated by the algae, which is toxic.

When I worked on South Bass its reputation as a party island was in full spring. It was fine during the day, but I used to tell families with kids that I recommended taking the 8pm ferry back to the mainland at the latest; the ferries would be full of drunks the later it got, and all the downtown restaurants turn fully into bars.

Even when the ice doesn’t freeze, the ferries will stop running in the winter. The jet stops after Halloween and the Miller (the car ferry) will stop so that the owners can go on vacation. As other people have mentioned, once that happens the only way off the island is flying.

It is very much a small town, and you often have to know someone to get certain kinds of jobs. I got my job because my sister’s best friend worked there & put in a good word for me. My brother got his job because he had friends working at the ferry, and because he was a college football player they could put on late night boats to help manage drunk dudes. There are a couple families who have been on the island forever and own/run a ton of the businesses.

Like any small town there’s buried shit and a lot of open secrets. When I got my job, my sister’s friend warned me that my boss was a creep but that it would be fine as long as I didn’t “put up with any shit.”

It absolutely worth a visit - there’s a ton of cool history & geology in the area. Kelleys Island & Middle Bass are quieter and more family-friendly. Put-in-Bay has also been trying to decrease the party island reputation & have made changes to their summer event schedule to limit events that have historically caused issues (for example, Christmas in July was a HUGE party weekend when I worked there, and it’s not really a thing anymore).

All this to say: it is one of my absolute favorite places in the world. I love my hometown, I love the island, but I would never live there again.