Michigan City’s Washington Park is a mecca for adrenaline junkies who enjoy taking advantage of the brisk wind and kicked up waves on Lake Michigan to surf, bodyboard and kiteboard. Conditions on Saturday attracted aficionados from the Chicago area and one celebrity from Hawaii.
Mike Stewart, of Oahu, is a previous nine-time world champion in the extreme sport of bodyboarding and currently ranks in the top ten among the several hundred rated competitors. Stewart said the sport has attracted about one million bodyboarders globally, including his wife, Lisa. They met on the bodyboarding circuit in Hawaii.
The couple stopped Saturday to enjoy Lake Michigan in Michigan City with their children Kaynan, 11, and Anela, 8. The family is in the first month of a one-year travel adventure across the United States, during which they are “homeschooling” the children on the road.
Stewart turns 50 in May and says that, as the oldest participant in bodyboarding, he is defining a sport that he started competing in at the age of 29.
Surfing devotee Jim Hoop of Chicago was delighted to hook up with the well-known celebrity Stewart in Washington Park, along with fellow surfers Matt Duncker and Bernie Konrady. They are members of the South End Surf Club.
“We’re very happy to be sharing the day with him,” Hoop said. “We made him an honorary member of the South End Surf group.”
The Chicago-based club is affiliated with the Eastern Surfing Association, which is the largest amateur surfing association in the world. Hoop said they organize all of the surfing contests on the Great Lakes.
Hoop has been surfing on Lake Michigan since 1985 and is very familiar with Michigan City area beaches. He talks about nearby “Billy Beach” as a surfing hot spot when he first visited 20 years ago.
“It used to be a phenomenal surfing spot, before the water level dropped,” Hoop said.
Another connection Hoop has to this area is his friendship with fellow surfer Bill Lemmons, of Chesterton. Lemmons died in 1999 and the South End Surf Club organizes a weekend memorial surfing contest in Indiana every October in his honor.