Whitefish Adventure

A rush of adrenaline surges through me as I prepare to jump off the cliff into the little inlet of water. Aiming for a patch of water between two rocks, I leap. I feel brief weightlessness before I plunge into the lake; the water is freezing here in Lake Michigan. When I surface, my lungs have trouble contracting, and it takes me awhile to catch my breath. I swim to the side and pull myself out of the water, grabbing the handholds in the uneven cliff.

I climb until I reach a flat area of rock on the edge of the water. Here, I turn around and survey the lake. The water is a pure, crystalline blue-green; what you would expect it to look like in the Caribbean, not here. In the fall, the waves at Cave Point crash into the cliffs and cavities, spraying water 15 feet into the air. Today, the water bobs smoothly up and down.

Shifting my gaze to the forest of old, tall pine trees behind and to the right of me, I locate where I am headed, recognizing the meager trail peaking out of the woods: I have walked it before. The rocks are slippery at Cave Point where they are wet, so I walk carefully.

The twigs snap audibly under my bare feet. I am following a path that runs adjacent to the shoreline; pine needles carpet this trail, which connects Cave Point to Whitefish Dunes State Park. Looking out over the edge of the cliff, I see my dad in a little green kayak rolling in the waves, along with another group of red rental kayaks is off the the left, farther out, probably looking at a shipwreck. To keep my balance while looking out from my vantage point, I put my hand on a thick pine tree and right into a patch of sticky sap. Brushing it off on the ground, I start to walk again.

Soon, I come to the beach. The smoky aroma of someone barbecuing on a grill at the edge of the trees reaches me. The boardwalk creaks under my feet as I head towards the sand, and I catch a peal of laughter from far away as a little girl catches a frisbee. Among the people relaxing in the sun, I see my mother underneath our large green beach umbrella near three little kids creating a sand castle in the fine white sand.

I decide to keep walking down the beach, to the other side of the bay. My skirt ripples in the breeze, mimicking the dune grasses swaying to my right. A seagull screeches "keee! keee!" as I pass and takes flight. As I make it to the curve in the bay at Whitefish Dunes, I turn around and see that I am a long way away from the main beach. I am alone. Though our little green umbrella is still visible on the distant beach, I can no longer hear the yells of kids frolicking in the water. All I hear is the soft lapping of waves on the sandy shore and the wind in the trees.

The water looks as if it is inviting me to swim as I make it back to the main beach. Because I plan to swim as far out as I can, I pull a life jacket around my body. There is no lake weed here in the shallow water at the beach, as the weak rip current doesn't give it a chance to grow. I advance much farther into the water where it is twelve feet deep. I bob in the 2 foot waves in my life jacket. The farther out I swim, I spot little tufts of grass below me. The waves get bigger, and it's getting harder to see the bottom of the lake. The lake water tastes tangy, like cold, stale rain and metal, but not unpleasant. My teeth are beginning to chatter, so I start drifting back to shore. Peering through the water, I see a little rainbow fish, far below me, protected from the waves.

After spending a half an hour swimming back, I make it within range of the beach. The rip current pulls at my legs as I traipse out of the water. My hair is a wet, tangled mess. I drip across the sand as I walk over to the umbrella. It's hot, and I feel like taking a nap in the warm sand and the warm sun. The sun is starting to set, and it illuminates the water with a red-orange hue as far as I can see.

Later, as we leave, I try to brush the sand off my feet, but it's no use. It's caked on, and it will stay with me until we get back to our little cabin.