When I picture lakes, I picture Haliburton lakes—placid, benign, with waves only lapping at the shores if there’s a motor boat. But I recently arrived home from a three-day camping trip on the shores of Lake Erie, and can still feel the lilt of the huge, relentless waves when I close my eyes. What a glorious lake. What a glorious beach – all sand (though my four-year-old was very upset that there wasn’t any beach glass)
I hadn’t been camping in years. Not since my late twenties when I was in a terrible relationship and had a very close encounter with a bear. My back/hip/shoulder are too creaky for thermarests, and for years, I told myself that my kids were too little. BUT then I learned about huge, cushy blow-up air mattresses, and my kids are potty-trained, and no longer napping and a friend had booked extra days at a campsite that she wasn’t going to use, AND the site was next to a beach and all of a sudden, there were no more excuses.
And so, we borrowed tents and air mattresses and camping chairs, and made list after list after list, and drove up to Long Point Provincial Park with our bird identification books, and a pile of bathing suits.
I debated googling “how to swim in waves”, but strapped on my orange tow float, and went straight into the water, remembering how much easier it is to let the waves carry you, instead of standing and having them crash into you. But there were so many sandbars and I had to swim for a long, long while before I couldn’t touch.
I must admit, the waves mean more active parenting than I had hoped for, but by the third day, the waves were smaller, quieter and it was just perfect. It also helped that it was brilliantly sunny the whole time we were there (have the forecasts been right even once in the last few weeks?) and we all got too much sun, and I managed to read two novels on the beach.
Last summer, I fell in love with Lake Huron, and this year it’s Lake Erie, and so, it looks like Great Lake swims are becoming an annual tradition (Lake Michigan on tap for next year…?!)
