Grand Haven, a town of just over 100,000 residents, is considered a small town by Midwest standards. Dubbed Coast Guard City USA by an act of Congress in 1998, Grand Haven receives over one million visitors per year. With its mile-long white sandy beach and hallmark lighthouse, Good Morning America named Grand Haven State Beach one of the top five beaches in the US. How does an inland beach on a lake make this list? Consider that most of the 300 miles of Michigan’s shoreline of Lake Michigan is comprised of white sand.

Photo Bryan Elkus

The world’s largest fresh water sand dunes line the shore towering as high as 400 feet above water. More importantly, Grand Haven has one of the best sandbars in the Great Lakes created by the discharge from the Grand River, one of the largest in the Great Lakes system. Its quarter-mile long rock jetties offer clean and protected wave riding conditions.

The wind fetch on strong southerlies is over 150 miles long. In sustained 20-knot conditions, the outer sandbar at Ferrysburg can easily generate overhead waves. On northerlies, the wind fetch is over 200 miles. As the northerly swell wraps around the southern Jetty, the lines at Grand Haven state park can resemble a mini Rincon. (Ed. See Lake Michigan)

Once you recognize the sheer beauty and ocean-like landscape of the five Great Lakes, it is important to understand the unique dynamics behind the wind and waves. Great Lakes waves are generally smaller and more playful than ocean waves.

Wind waves on the Great Lakes are different than ocean swell, where waves are formed by isolated storms thousands of miles away from land. Great Lakes waves are a result of considerably shorter running swells and are more choppy and unpredictable than ocean swell. As the key element in Great Lakes wave formation, wind is critical to a successful wave riding experience.

The formula varies at different locations but ridable waves are typically created by winds in excess of 15 knots that have blown over water for more than 50 miles. It takes five to 10 hours of such conditions for waves to be waist high. Frontal weather systems in the region can last from five hours to several days and can generate waves up to 10 to 20 feet tall. Since the smallest lake, Lake Ontario, is 50 miles wide by 200 miles long, you can begin understand the magnitude of the possible wind fetches that can generate quality waves.

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Great Lake wave riding is an extreme sport largely due to the extreme elements involved. The stronger the winds, the larger the waves. Our strongest winds are usually during late fall cold fronts where water temperature plummets into the low 50s or high 40s. Wind chill is also an extreme danger. If you can imagine an epic outer reef swell in Maui, now try to imagine kiting in the middle of the ocean storm that generated those waves and you will be one step closer to understanding our waves.

If riding ocean waves is compared to fighting a dragon, riding Great Lakes waves would be considered fighting ninjas. However, the occasional dragon does rear its ugly head. On June 26, 1954, the Chicago lakefront was hit by a 20 foot wall of water called a seiche (pronounced saysh) that swept eight unsuspected beachgoers and fishermen off the Montrose Harbor Pier to their death.

While a tsunami or seismic sea wave is generated by underwater earthquake or volcanic activity, Chicago’s 1954 seiche was caused by a line of thunderstorms racing southwest across Lake Michigan at speeds in excess of 50 mph. The cold downdrafts of air flowing out of the thunderstorms caused a rapid rise in air pressure that pushed a massive bulge of lake surface water toward the southeastern shore. This surge of water then reflected back to the Chicago shore as a large tsunami-like wave.

(Ed. There can be some confusion between large waves with different causes Meteotsunamis (built and pushed by storms) and Seiches (rebound waves that bounce/reflect back from a strong surge in different direction)) - Instagram

While Lake Michigan is arguably the epicenter of Great Lakes wave riding, the other four lakes can each hold court. Lake Huron is home to over 20 riding spots. Two of them are legendary. Tawas Point State Park is located in arguably one of the busiest riding spots in the Midwest, where it is not uncommon to find 50-100 kiters on the weekends. The large sandbar offers great learning conditions while the open water offers good wave riding.

Southern thermals dominate most of the summer. Local fixture Jimbo Olfzewski once told me that he rode 22 days in a row in July with most of those days in board shorts. Across the lake on the Canadian side of Lake Huron, a small rock-bottom bay is home to Kettle Point. Kettle Point offers traditional wave riding conditions with a good day dishing out overhead A-frame surf.

Here, when all the stars are aligned, the surf can reach mythical proportions. One of my favorite sessions of the year is always at Kettle Point on the first big north of the year, typically in early August. Ceremonially, this is my season opener for the wave riding season. Tim Blanchard will typically call it the previous evening and an early morning road trip will have us there by 9:00 am as we drive on the beach all the way to water’s edge. These early fall sessions, while fickle, provide a rare chance to ride warm-water waves on the Great Lakes. (Ed. See Lake Huron)

Both Lake Ontario and Lake Erie have a relative east-west orientation and are similar in size with a north-south fetch of approximately 50 miles and a west-east fetch of approximately 200 miles. At each lake’s eastern shore there are numerous wave riding spots with long sandy beaches and clear water. Since the best conditions are generally during spring and fall, riders usually bypass the bustling summer beach crowds.

It’s no secret that Lake Erie’s greater Buffalo area on both sides of the border is home to some of the best kiteboarding conditions on the Great Lakes. On the Canadian side, Sherkston Beach is a long-established haven for kiteboarders, surfers, and boogie boarders. On the US side, Angola Beach offers a combination of great learning conditions and, at times, ridable waves. (Ed. See Lake Erie)

On the northeastern shores of Lake Ontario, when a beach break called Sandbanks fires, surfers, windsurfers, and kiteborders from the provinces of Ontario, Ottawa, and Quebec point their inner compass towards this legendary spot. Sandbanks, one of our busiest wave riding areas, is also a very busy tourist attraction during the summer months, but since the best riding conditions are during spring and fall, riders generally show up to large empty beaches.

On a busy weekend, it is not uncommon to find 100 riders here with a well-defined lineup of windsurfers and kiteboarders. The wave periods at Sandbanks are some of the longest in the Great Lakes, providing a more traditional wave riding experience and also allowing a forgiving playground for the wave riding novice. (Ed. See Lake Ontario)

Photo Dave Dalquist

On Lake Superior, owing to its remoteness and notoriously dangerous seas, wave riding here remains the obscure passion of a few souls who prefer not to disclose any relevant details. This is considered the region’s last frontier. (Ed. - Obscurity no longer completely true. see Lake Superior )

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