Thu 28 Jul 05

Twice in the past week I’ve been out on Lake Michigan with waves well over my head. This past Sunday was a solid red flag day out at Hoffmaster. I took a few kids from work, most of whom I don’t think had ever seen waves that big, and splashed around in 4 foot breakers for about four hours. Then on Tuesday I was watching some Internet doppler radar showing a nice blob of green moving across the lake and decided to take a chance with the weather.

I headed out to Grand Haven with Dan late in the afternoon with grey skies overhead and a few light rain drops splattering on the windshield. I thought maybe we had missed the big wave window when we first walked up. From the beach edge the waves just looked like speed bumps, but after getting closer and spending some time in the water things really started to pick up. In no time I realized we were toying with five to six foot waves. Sometimes rolling in in sets of three or four at a time. Curling and sucking back on themselves like ocean water. Big enough that half a dozen guys were out with surfboards by the time we had to take off. We settled for body surfing, but I have no complaints. Other than wishing now that I lived near an ocean.