hopefully it’s evident by now that my family enjoyed the outdoors. we liked camping, jetskiing, the works. when i was 17, my dad and his friends hatched up a ridiculous plot. to our knowledge, no one had attempting something so daft.

they were going to cross lake michigan on jetskis.


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the plan was simple…leave Belmont Harbor early in the morning, use a compass to point roughly east south east, and just do it. 2 jetskis, 1 jetboat (which is nothing more than a glorified jetski that seats 4), 2 extra cans of gasoline, 1 cooler filled with beer, some wetsuits, and 2 gallons of fresh water. the trip is about 46 miles…

so on a perfect summer morning, with no wind, my dad and his friends  dropped the jetskis in the water, and were off, blindly boating jetskiing in the middle of lake michigan, trying to do something they hadn’t done before. myself, and the rest of the wives, packed up the cars (with empty trailers) proceeded to drive from Chicago to New Buffalo. The trip takes about 90 minutes. i drove. mom and i worried about the possible consequences, what could occur if we arrived in New Buffalo and they were not there.

when we arrived in New Buffalo, we found all men that made the trek intact! They had been waiting for nearly 40 minutes. conditions were perfect, and it showed. they were all a beer deep by the time we got to the beach. blindly navigating, we were surprised they could make it. i was worried i’d have to call the coast guard and tell them a group of 4 polish idiots tried to cross the lake, and they’re somewhere between illinois, indiana and michigan. they’d probably believe it was a prank and hang up. no one is that stupid. they’d have been wrong.

we spent an amazing day on the beach! we rented a bed and breakfast in new buffalo, so we spent the night, and spent the next day on the beach, and prepared for our return. since it’s something i had never done before, i begged my mom to let me make the trip back on the jetskis.  i was 17! i could drive, i sure as hell could sit on a jetski for 45 minutes as we got back to chicago. one of the other men would drive our car home with the trailer.

so that evening, i put on my wetsuit, and joined the 3 other men that would be making the trek back (including my father) on the jetskis. as the cars took off, we headed back to the beach, jumped on the jetskis, and proceed on the 45 minute trek  back to chicago. we left at 5:30 pm.

andy and i were on the jetboat, my dad was on one jetski, henry on another. again, we pointed ourselves toward the outline of chicago (you couldn’t really see it, we just thought we could) and just drove tried to stay alive. thus started the scariest 3 and a half hours of my life. see, we left on a day without perfect conditions. so there were waves, 2 footers to start with, which is nothing to scoff at, if you’re on a boat. on a jetski, 2 feet makes a large wave. henry, whom i’ve mentioned in other posts, has a slight disobidience problem. he likes to do his own thing. however, when you’re on a jetski with limited fuel resources, you cannot just leave the group, but constantly henry would go off on his own, while andy, my dad and i pointed ourselves in the right direction (towards chicago, which at this point you could see about 10 miles off shore of new buffalo.) henry would point himself more towards gary, indiana and continually pointed  his jetski that direction*. we would chase him, point him back to chicago, which we would do nearly a dozen times, wasting our precious fuel as well. at this point, we had been on the water nearly 90 minutes, and the waves were getting stronger, and it was about 7:30pm and it was getting dark. we guessed we were about halfway from chicago, judging by its size on the horizon. this is the point where i realized, my mom was standing on the shores of belmont harbor, looking out, watching for us. it had been 90 minutes, we should have been back already, waiting. moments later, henry yells, jetski sputtering. he was out of gas. we took just one can of gasoline this time, assuming my dad’s jetski would be the only one which would run out of gas. on the trip from chicago, he was the only one needing more fuel. this time, henry’s jaunts away from the group burned up more of his fuel. he filled up with the 5 gallons, and that was that. no more extra gas. we’d have to make it on what we had left in the tanks.

then the storm came. i am usually not afriad of severe storms. however, in the middle of lake michigan, a thunderstorm engulfs you and the sky. you are nothing but 3 dots on a vast ocean lake. the waves grew to 3 to 5 feet, swells were likely larger. rain flew horizontally into our faces. it was freezing cold rain. the waves swallowed up my dad and henry as they headed down the backside of rolling waves. moments later they would emerge, pounded by the water of the next wave. as the sky got darker, and lighting strikes flashed from cloud to cloud, briefly illuminating the sky, so we could see each other for the split second of light provided. our saving grace was the chicago skyline, we would have been stranded on the lake, driving blindly, as had we been headed to new buffalo in such conditions, we wouldn’t have seen the multitude of lights provided by the hundreds of buildings shining from the city.

the skyline grew bigger, but the storm grew fiercer. my mom watched and waited (she shared her account later,) looking out at the dark lake in front of her, wondering, “how in the world can they see where they are going.” Fear took reason from my mom that evening…she had forgetten we were staring the other direction, not into blackness, but to the sweet glory of chicago, navy pier, and all the dry land you could stand on. nearly 2 and a half hours into our trip, we estimated we were just 5 miles away from chicago. it was large, the storm pounded us with rain and deafening thunder, but we continued on…praying we’d get home safe. we were all soaking wet, battered by rain and waves coming over the front of the jetskis.

approximately a mile from shore, henry begins to yell as his jetski sputters. he was out of gas. that was it, we would have to tow him. my dad threw henry a line, and begun to slowly drag him back to shore. we were so close. we could see the lights of belmost harbor, the glowing red and green lanterns indicating where the entrance was. as we got closer and closer, me, of all people, the consumate sailor, felt something was dangerously wrong. i jumped to my feet and began to yell, “DAD! DAD! STOP! STOP!! STOP!!!” everyone wanted to get to the damn harbor so quickly that they forgot one key thing…chicago’s harbors all have a breakwater. they’re dark, hard to see, and made with giant slabs of concrete that are 6 inches thick and 6 feet by 6 feet tall. we all came within 20 feet of running right INTO the breakwater. we had ignored the other set of red and green lights about a quarter of a mile north of our location indicating the entrance through the breakwater. we were focusing on the lights on the shore. had we hit the breakwater, we would have been stranded on a bunch of rocks.

we quickly jaunted up the breakwaters edge. still dragging henry, my dad’s jetski unleaching a horrendous whining beeeeep sound, indicating the engine was overheating, and pushing it further could result in damage. we could see our cars. the rain had stopped upon our arrival. it looked dry in chicago, but the storm behind us was still thundering. we pulled up to the boat slip…tired, beaten. the women all cried. they couldn’t believe we had done. my mom yelled at us. she was freaked. but we were safe, and i have one of the greatest stories of my young life to share from the experience.

my dad and i never attempted the trip again. henry and andy tried the trip 2 more times. on a third attempt, henry’s jaunts around the lake caused him to run out of gas, making andy pull henry the rest of the way. soon, andy was out of fuel too. they had no extra tanks. andy used his cellphone to contact the coast guard, but his battery quickly died, and they were stranded for over 8 hours with andy’s 10 year old son on the jet boat with him. they drifted nearly 25 miles from where andy first told the coast guard to look. (at least this time he brought a gps unit, but that too, ran out of juice.) they drank water out of the lake. to our knowledge, no one we know has attempted the trip since.

*we find this funny, as 4 years later, henry bought a summer home in gary, indiana.