Surf's Up

By now it is no secret that I am obsessed with Lake Michigan. I love it. It is beautiful, and unpredictable, and powerful, and majestic. Everyone who sees it for the first time is amazed at its size and how much it resembles an ocean. Still, many people are surprised to hear that we have so many surfers that take on the waves of Lake Michigan.

The city I live in is known as one of the best spots in the world for freshwater surfing. There is an annual surfing contest held here every year and surfers come from all over to participate. It is pretty fun to watch. Especially when our lady Lake decides to cooperate and give the contestants some decent waves. This year the surfers did not have very good waves the weekend of the contest but this past Saturday the conditions were great.

(click on pics to enlarge)

Still, as we were driving by I was pretty shocked to see so many surfers out that day. There had to be over fifty surfers. We quickly pulled the car over and got out to watch for a while. And of course I had to snap some photos too.

The surfers would ride the waves all the way to the beach, walk across the sand to the jetty, and walk out to the pier.

Once they got to a relatively calm area they would climb down the boulders and jump back into the lake's icy waters.

I'm not a fan of being cold, but it looked like so much fun that I think I may have convinced myself to try it someday. Yes, I may freeze my butt off but at least I wouldn't be crashing into coral reefs or get eaten by sharks. It sounds like a pretty good trade off to me.

I guess these surfers think so too.