Wind and Waves

Sunday lazy post time featuring a post from last year on the annoying wind of Michigan. Good for kite flyers. Bad for water lovers.

Although wind might not be all that great at creating energy, it’s really good at making waves. Quick, what direction do the prevailing winds blow from during a midwestern summer? If you answered “southwest”, you’re right. If winds blow out of the southwest, that would make any land mass on the East end of a lake, be it a large or small lake, directly in the path of some large wind generated waves. Make sense, right? I offer you a geography lesson, and two differing levels of wind. Michigan’s western shoreline is on the eastern side of Lake Michigan. Big, churning, angry, green, shark infested Lake Michigan. The lake is roughly 75 miles “wide”, allowing winds to build from the Illinois/Wisconsin border, and whip the water into a muddy green froth before ramming into those “tranquil” little beaches in Wind and Wave Ravaged Country, I mean Harbor Country. This is hard to describe in writing, so just take a look at this clip so you can understand what these waves might look like.

Scary, huh? See, there’s a difference between a location where you can look at the water, and a location where you can enjoy the water. Lake Michigan and its’ Eastern shore is largely a lake that is good for looking at, not so much for playing in. Consider those waves and your children on the beach. Not a pretty picture. Consider you bobbing along in a nice 24′ Cobalt and having waves like that show up for the party- unannounced. It’s a bad idea. To contrast the destruction and violence that is Lake Michigan’s eastern shore, I set up a little video of Geneva Lake for you.

I was sitting at an open house in Fontana on Saturday afternoon, sitting there wondering why some people would rather sweat in the city and suburbs than be cooled by lake breezes at Lake Geneva. I turned on my video camera, pointed it towards the lake, set it on the deck railing, and pressed record. Steven Speilberg I am not. I recorded about 30 minutes of my open house, and shared a few minutes of that clip with the world.

This should be a great video for those who say that Geneva is too busy, or too rough. Too packed full of boats, too windy. Take a look at this video. You’ll see and hear a few boats. You’ll hear some birds. You’ll hear the wind in the trees. Take a look at those waves on Geneva, while the video from Michigan is still fresh in your minds. Remember, this was shot Saturday afternoon, with 90 degree temperatures and bright sunshine. Does this look like a crowded lake to you? Me neither. See those waves? That’s a rough day on Geneva…

See, there’s a big difference between a lake you can use, and a lake you can look at. Walk down your lawn to jump on the boat for a Saturday afternoon boatride on Geneva, putz around the lake for a bit, and head home in time for an afternoon nap. If you’re in Michigan, that boat ride just got a little more complicated… get in your car, drive to the marina, get in your boat, ride around and hope like heck that there’s not a storm brewing somewhere over western Illinois.

Tim Allen would never talk to you about waves and wind like I do, so I hope you’re learning who you can trust…