Do you guys watch buoy reports?
JoeStang
Member Posts: 1,116 ✭✭✭✭
I usually check the buoy status in the boating season to see the lake
conditions, and the winds the last couple days have have some pretty big
numbers. This is our little puddle Lake St Clair:
2013 276 Cuddy ~ 350 MAG / B3
Comments
(EST)
kts
kts
ft
sec
sec
in
in
°F
°F
°F
psu
nmi
ft
Now, this is "significant wave height", so most waves a bit smaller, but some can be 50% higher. Pretty crazy to a greenhorn like me.
PC BYC, Holland, MI
I cant even imagine 4-6 footers, let alone double that! Craziness.
PC BYC, Holland, MI
I've been out on Michigan in 3's and they almost never were whitecaps, so you could slow down a bit and just go up & down with the swells. Three footers over here are guaranteed whitecaps and you pretty much just have to hope you can stay on plane and dont slam too much. Just my (limited) experience.
PC BYC, Holland, MI
I've yet to get caught in a bad storm that I couldnt just anchor & wait out, but I've heard numerous stories from very experienced boaters of storms rolling up & closely spaced 4-6' waves coming out of nowhere. The best I've heard is from a guy with a 20ish foot Whaler that was about 2 miles from his marina when a storm cell popped up right offshore, and by the time he was halfway back was climbing vertical waves with his prop digging into the bottom at each wave trough. This was in 5-6' of water.
On the plus side I have never had to let out more than 50' of anchor line, and we're always just 5 minutes from a nice shallow swimming spot.
I actually sucked up some sand/pebbles last year in a low spot in my marina that ended up getting stuck in my t-stat (causing a cold running problem). So, even there I am not safe. The lake is VERY dependant on the snow amounts in Canada, and thus Lake Huron to keep it high. This last summer was prety average water depths, the previous year was VERY VERY low. Like people pulling out in August because they were already at winter levels.
There are some really shallow spots where you think there wouldnt be, and its definitely a lake that you NEED to know where they are. At least a couple people a year run over "Sand Island" by the Middle Channel, where it goes from 35' in the channel to less than a foot. When the waters low you can actually see the bottom. This entire summer the "island" was under 1-2' of water, so I'm sure more than a few people found it.
It is a great lake for swimming though, as the water temp usually comes up pretty fast, especially in the shallows not right next to the channels. And like you said its easy to find a spot by yourself in relatively shallow area, so you dont have to worry about current or 200' of anchor line.