About Jim

I'm Jim. I've lived in West Michigan's lake country for more than 25 years and raised a family here, and I was vacationing on this shoreline for years before that. In the Grand Haven area, I'm one of the regulars: my family has spent more summer evenings at the Musical Fountain than I can count, we've stood in the Coast Guard Festival crowds more than a few times, and the restaurants in these towns have seen plenty of us over the years.

Some of what I know came the hard way. I once drove my jet ski from Lake Michigan through the channel into Spring Lake, and it was not fun - my back hurt by the end, and the no-wake stretches got old real fast. It is not like Muskegon Lake, where you run wide open, slow through the channel, and open it up again onto the big lake.

After enough visits, the questions start stacking up. Why do some boats cross Spring Lake at an idle while smaller ones run wide open? What exactly is being cleaned up on Harbor Island? Is the drawbridge about to make us late for dinner? The answers turn out to live in federal regulations, township ordinances, and lake board reports, places nobody reads for fun. I read them anyway, then put what I find here in plain language, with links to the sources so you can check me.

Photos on these pages are mine, taken on those trips. Where I don't have the shot yet, the page waits for one.

Nothing here is sponsored and nobody pays to be covered. If you want the fine print on how facts get checked and corrected, it lives in the editorial policy.

And if you live on this water and catch me getting something wrong, say so - someone who sees the lake every morning will always know it better than someone who visits. The contact page is the fastest route.

- Jim