Passage III

Wave Riding on Lake Michigan

By the time cool autumn winds rush in, kicking up waves that rock the pier: the sunbathers and swimmers have already left our beach in Grand Haven, Michigan. The empty beach, with waves pushing so far onto shore that they would have knocked down sand castles in July, is our favorite sight. It’s September, and for my friends and me, it’s finally time to surf our stretch of the “Third Coast”: the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.

Although on rare occasions we do surf twelve-foot waves here—as we’ve done at Malibu Beach on the West Coast, lake surfing is different from ocean surfing. (35) The six- to ten-foot waves we can realistically hope for on Lake Michigan mainly happen in fall and winter, when winds often reach twenty-five miles per hour. Our waves, created by local weather systems, are choppy and quick-moving. This makes them more fun and more challenging to surf. Ocean waves, on the other hand, are created by tides and storms a thousand miles offshore.(36) They are usually bigger than lake waves and smoother and more predictable.

The Great Lakes region is also referred to as The “Fresh Coast” because of its fresh water. It doesn’t feel like an ocean when we surf it, though. The fresh water of Lake Michigan makes us slow and heavy on our boards; it doesn’t have the salt that creates the buoyancy we get when surfing an ocean. It’s hard to paddle—and to do sharp, carving turns—on Lake Michigan. (39) We add stability and reduce density by using surfboards that are longer and made with more foam than our ocean boards.

By late November, if we wear thick wet suits— completely with hood, mitts, and booties—so we can surf in slushy, freezing water while snow flies around us. Likewise, ice on our beach shuts us out from the waves. By January, our season is over. We watch most of Lake Michigan freeze in winter, thaw in spring, and fill up with boats and water skis all summer. We wait for the crisp September wind to celebrate the start of the school year and the chance to reunite with our friends.