Thirty knot winds and waves over 10 feet before Labor Day? What a treat to Chicagoland paddling community; to us who usually see these kinds of conditions either in March or in November. When water or air or both are close to freezing, few venture out to test turbulent waters with their toes. Yesterday, when combined air-water temperatures are 140° it's a different matter.
After the call went out on the CASKA board, I got a more than a few tentative inquiries. Quite unexpected as I usually get one or two from my regular partners. All who inquired were unsure about the magnitude of conditions. None of them has been in something quite that powerful and, otherwise, the experience levels ranged from no more than one foot waves to 4-5-footers. People were unsure if they should even bother with the drive when the forecast is 10' and then just watch the rage from shore.
Well, spectator alone might be worth it. Based on my own experience, the cautious encouraging response was pretty clear. First, water is powerful and you need to respect it. The fact that people were apprehensive about jumping straight in went far to pay the homage. Safety first and conditions like that are no place to be for someone who has some unsettled business with water or whatever may lay beneath. Truth is a lot of people have various anxieties and phobias about this wet stuff. And it's normally a good thing to be afraid. But if an unexpected dunk may send a person into a panic mode making friends with water should take precedence over friendly wrestling with an opponent much bigger than any of us.
On the positive side, Lake Michigan is a masterpiece of engineering for all levels of rough water aspirants. We have soft sand beaches on 90% of our shores. Landing on these is much more forgiving than the rocks of Lake Superior, for example. Second, the depths approach most of our shorelines with smooth and gradual slopes. That is to say that big waves break far from shore and the on-shore breaks are usually very manageable no matter what goes on on the open water.
Newcomers to rough water have yet another advantage on the east coast—the sand bar. Almost the entire Michigan coastline as well as most of Indiana have this sand formation several hundred feet off shore. I understand that predominant waves from the west constantly push on the east shore of our lake during the storm season. The retreating waters, then, bring sand off the beach to build and maintain this structure. Be that as it may, the sand bar breaks any significant waves. When storms kick up really good stuff, you can even see dumping waves on these sandbars with explosions of quite intimidating proportions. And did I mention the water is warm!
Given this feedback, all of those who were unsure bought my story and pulled up at Portage Indiana on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. That's quite a lot responsibility all based on a verbal promise. We had Greg A., Chad H., John G., Sarah H., Dave S., and myself. The ubiquitous Tom Bamonte scared up a couple extra restless souls: Zach C. and Joe K. showed up with him. Pat Lutsch drove for over an hour just to take pictures! Joe also persuaded his significant other to come along and she with Pat are responsible for all the pictures in the video montage at the end of this post. Later in the day a trio from Geneva Kayak Center joined the surfing group headed by the experienced Scott F., newly certified ACA instructor Aaron L. (congratulations!) and the owner of golden touch when it comes to kayak repair Jim W.
Lakefront Park in Portage is a beautiful site for paddlers. It's part of the Lake Michigan Water Trail and I would call it a jewel in the collection of the existing launch sites. Several features of this spot made it particularly suitable for the day. First, the gradient of bottom descent at this location is especially shallow. More experienced paddlers may not like this very much but the surf zone is very long. The good thing for newer rough water enthusiasts is several breaks as the waves unleash the power of wind on the way to the shore. I counted three on this day: the first one about 6' on the average, the second about 4' and the last somewhere around 2'. At each breaking station, occasional waves were several feet above the average at least. Make no mistake about it—there was some serious power out there on Saturday!
So that was how the day went: intrepid few dove straight for the other side of the big breakers. Getting out through those one would get beat up and needed a strong stomach. On the way back, the first line of breakers was quite sudden and powerful—not your placid release of energy by no means. There were stern lessons taught to those who ventured too far too early—several LONG swims to shore, a couple of violent tumbles stern over bow.
Most used the third break and the dissipating foam after the break—as good of a place to find the balance for the side surfer as you can find. Side surfing after a broach is, after all, the position all sea kayakers find themselves in the surf no matter the skill level.
Personally, I preferred the second break as waves in the 4-6' range are ideal for sea kayak surfing. They are easy enough to catch but not too big so that one can maintain the kayak perpendicular to the wave without broaching. The power at the primary break was just too much. That was the survival zone. I enjoyed the thrills of that zone vicariously.
At the end of the day, everybody seemed to have had a great time. What a beautiful day it turned out to be. Reportedly, the winds in Michigan were 20 knots and straight on shore. We may or may not have seen 10 knots and all of that was coming from the left beam on the way out. Wind strength and direction can mean a lot of extra work breaking out through the waves and everyone was glad that wind was just not a worry on this fine day.
Come join us next time the seas swell up!
Click this link to see the HD montage of the action.
