Beaches

I recently returned from a week of camping and swimming with my family in northern Michigan. We had a good time, and part of that was the excellent beaches we found. We have set a family goal to try to set foot in all of the Great Lakes during this summer, and we were able to check off three of the five lakes on just this trip. We camped at Straits State Park, located on the Upper Peninsula side of the Straits of Mackinac.

The first beach we visited was at the campsite; this was Lake Huron, but within the shadow of the Mackinaw Bridge. The water was cold but refreshing compared to the summer heat. This beach had some sand, but was mostly rocks. It was a perfectly clear day, with no wind, and so there were very little waves (perhaps 6 inches). It should be noted that the water here is amazingly clear, such that you can stand in water up to your shoulder and still see every detail on the bottom.

The next day we traveled north into the Upper Peninsula. We visited Tahquemenon Falls. It was a nice ten minute hike in the woods to see the falls, which were fun to see but I feel they are a bit over-hyped. We stopped at the first little beach area we came to on Lake Superior, but the beach was entirely make of very sharp rocks, so we didn't stay long. We then had lunch at a little diner in Paradise, MI, where we were directed by the waitress to a beach a bit further down the coast. This turned out to be on the south shore of Whitefish Bay, and it was a beautiful beach made entirely of amazingly soft sand. We had the beach almost to ourselves and played for several hours. The water was cold but bearable, with about one to two foot waves. Being on the south side of the lake, the trees here give shade onto the beach, which is nice for those of us like my family who are pasty white and sunburn easily.

The next beach we visited was on Lake Michigan. We drove about ten miles west of St. Ignace on US 2, at which point the highway runs right along the lake shore. We parked on the side of the highway and jumped in the water. This beach is entirely made of very fine sand, which is fun to play in but gets everywhere: into your clothes, into your towel, into the baby diaper, into the bag of chips, etc. There were also no trees here, the closet trees were about 100 meters the other way from the highway (the water is about 20 meters from the road), and so sunscreen is a necessity here. The sky was cloudless, but the wind had picked up some and so we spent all afternoon playing in the two to three foot waves.

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