Julia Wildman
Lake Michigan at sunset
As a certifiable beach professional, my standards for fun in the sun are high. With that, I’ve been to several beaches on both coasts of the US, Aruba and a few in Mexico. However, none of them can compare to the beaches on the east side of Lake Michigan.
My list of beach essentials has been refined and perfected through years of trial and error, as well as through collaboration with my beach bestie, Amber.
Multiple bottles of varying SPF sunscreen, several towels, proper shade and good tunes set the stage for the perfect beach experience. The beach itself, however, is arguably the most important part.
Nothing ruins a fun beach day more than the unpredictability of the ocean. Seaweed and dead fish along the shore can leave a violent aroma that lingers in the air. The salt burns like the devil and has the tendency to get in the eyes. A jellyfish sting can leave a person scarred for life – physically and mentally. The potential for a shark attack is reason enough to avoid the “salt life.”
None of those issues really exist on the white sand beaches of Lake Michigan. They’re clean, completely open to the public and free from scary critters. This is pretty common for many other lakes too.
Here in the Grand Valley, Snook’s Bottom is a free spot to cool off during the dog days of summer. It has sand, sun and the ability to take a paddleboard or floaty on the water without the fear of being pulled out to sea by the tide. It’s also significantly warmer and easier to get to.
While they’re better than ocean beaches, lake beaches come with drawbacks too. More often than not, the warm season is much shorter. On Lake Michigan, swim season really only lasts from June to September. Somewhere like Tampa, Florida has a reasonable warm season from about March to October.
Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, some lakes are horribly polluted, even though mid-century regulations have made considerable progress towards cleanliness. Multiple rivers that flow into the Great Lakes have frequently caught on fire from oil pollution and sewage that was dumped directly into them for a long time
A lot of that stopped once the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stepped in, starting in the ‘70s, to protect these spaces and things are much cleaner now.
Even so, the ocean is deep, dark, cold and scary, and I don’t know if I’ll ever love it the way I love lake beaches. They are cozy and feel nurturing in ways that the ocean just never will.