Aquarian Touch #10021

The Story

Driven by the breezes alone, a striped golden wave of very pure Lake Michigan water comes rolling into the beach. Others are following along behind it, ready to make their own display while coming onto the sand. The purity of the water lets you look into the wave and clearly see the ripples of sand beneath the surface refracted by the water. They resemble tiger stripes and the golden yellow is from the sand too. A little beach surf such as this and a huge sky with the sound of gulls come together to make a dream-like peace in a place of solitude.

The freshwater was very clear and pure at this beach. It tasted fine and felt very cool. Very noticeably, there was no odor here at all as you’d find visiting saltwater beaches.

This beach is on the very top of Lake Michigan in the Upper Peninsula. Up there, dinky crossroad towns lie forty miles apart down roads through endless unbroken conifer forests. You are often twenty miles or more from anyone and anywhere; you are closest to Nowhere when you’re here than anyplace else. Humans are very small in the grand scheme of the UP. In the most secluded of places there, it felt like only you and God together. Your small humanity becomes very noticeable and this remote beach was one of those places.

It’s the wind alone that makes the waves on the Great Lakes. That day, only a mild breeze coming in made these little nine-inch waves decorated in yellow stripes. I laid prone downhill on the sand and let the waves come straight at the camera, shooting off a hundred or so frames with nearly endless variety in shapes. It was completely fun and totally engrossing to do. Time fell away into a pointless measure like being stranded on an ocean island. Yet at the same time, it was here you could certainly notice the steady tick of universal time moving perpetually forward, one wave at a time.

Location: along Lake Michigan in the Great Lakes, somewhere in the remotes of the Upper Peninsula, Michigan. Picture and story © Andrew Dierks