5 August
2018
As we
continued south along the Michigan coast, we decided to stop for the night in
Grand Haven, Michigan. We have been
there before for the annual Coast Guard festival. As a Coast Guard city, it puts on a great
party around the official birthday of the Coast Guard, 4 August. We will
be arriving at the end of the day of the last day of the celebration.
We wanted to
stay at the state park campground on the beach on the Grand Haven waterfront
without a reservation. We were hopeful
that a number of folks would be leaving after the festivities. We arrived at
the entrance in a lineup of rv’s checking in.
Anneke went to the office and did her thing and we got a spot for one
night!
It was just
a few minutes’ walk to the beach and some great views. It was also a short walk to the pierhead.
As we walked
the pier head we noticed some commotion along the beach. Then ambulances,
firetrucks, Coast Guard rescue boats and several helicopters were clearly
searching just offshore of the beach. It
was a very windy afternoon with large breaking waves on the beach and crashing
into the pierhead. Despite that, there
were young surfers catching waves right next to the cement pier.
We decided
to walk back to the beach. We stopped
near a crowd gathered to watch all the activity. Someone told us that this was already the
fifth rescue attempt of the day. Several
were in the hospital and one had died. Besides
the standard rescue equipment, they were also using a fire dept ladder truck to
scan the water with some type of scanner. They also used a human string of
people to walk through the water to locate a person who may be below the
surface. In the end, they recovered the person in the water,
but it was too late. He was pronounced dead
at the scene.
So, the day's
total was five rescues with two dead and three in the hospital. Locals told us that this is a fairly common occurrence
on this beach in rough conditions. The
thing that surprised me the most was the announcement on the PA system that the
beach was now closed after we had returned to the RV. I would have thought they might have
considered that after the first rescue attempt. To be clear there are two beaches, a small one
at the state park and a bigger public park just south of it. All the rescue attempts were at the public
beach.
The day
ended for us with a beautiful sunset over Lake Michigan.
