Five Great Lakes Swim Adventure
Date and time
Tuesday, July 20, 2027 · 7:00 PM
Location
1170 Oakburn Ave SE, Grand Rapids, MI
Date and time
Tuesday, July 20, 2027 · 7:00 PM
Location
1170 Oakburn Ave SE, Grand Rapids, MI
Date and time
Tuesday, July 20, 2027 · 7:00 PM
Location
1170 Oakburn Ave SE, Grand Rapids, MI
Swimming in all Five Great Lakes in the same day
Note: This is mostly the info from 2026, which took place on 15 July. There will be some updates as we go along.
Five Great Lakes – 2027 The Hotels and Breweries version.
Note: The spots we are stopping have street addresses, GPS coordinates, and what3words.com links.
20 July 2027 Leave home, head for Simcoe, Ontario. (Note: If you want to leave a car so you can carpool the Canada portion, there's a carpool parking lot off the Wadhams road exit about 7 miles before Port Huron on I-69 https://what3words.com/briefer.flop.paintbrush)
Good stops I Intend to do on the way: (Three hours from GR) Lunch at Refined Fool Brewery in Sarnia. 1326 London Rd. In 2023 we found a great beer called Van Full of Weirdos. https://what3words.com/thudded.lame.streaks Seemed appropriate. (179 Miles from GR)
Point Lands Park in Sarnia. 99 Seaway Rd. https://what3words.com/scales.shell.promise There’s a scale model of the Great Lakes. It looks much cooler on a satellite zoom in than it does in person. If you have a few extra minutes in Sarnia. Otherwise, skip it. (We stopped here in 2024. While kind of cool, it’s better to see on Google Maps than in person.)
At 5PM, meet at the Blue Elephant Artisan Brewery 96 Norfolk St S, Simcoe, ON N3Y 2W2, Canada https://what3words.com/commercially.unless.triplet (122 miles) (The night before) Awesome place. Nice people. We can reserve a room there. Call 519 428 2886 and tell them how many people you have coming. Pretty cool place, decent food and beer. When we figure out how many of us there are, we’ll let them know.
Stay in Simcoe for the night. We stayed at Travelodge but there are other possibilities too. About 15 minutes to Port Dover Beach.
LAKE ERIE Port Dover Beach 2 Walker St, Port Dover, ON N0A 1N0 https://w3w.co/drone.rinks.respectively 42.78326° N, 80.20304° W (9 miles)
Plan to be there at 5am. You’ll start in the dark but use the green blinking light on the lighthouse to the left to sight. Then turn around and use one of the lights on the shore to the right. It’ll be light soon. Done swimming and on the road well before 7am. Drive 2 blocks north and...
stop at Tim Horton for a bathroom break and breakfast on the way out of Port Dover (2 blocks from the swim site). Just over an hour to…
LAKE ONTARIO Confederation Beach Park 580 Van Wagners Beach Rd, Hamilton, ON L8E 3L8 https://w3w.co/repeats.bolt.waving 43.25373° N, 79.75881° W (45 miles) (Just before you get there, right after Barton Street, there’s a Tim Horton’s on the left if you need a bathroom break. There’s not much for restrooms at the swim site.) Swimming before 8am. Nice benches there we can sit on to change. Leave town by 8:45. A little over 2 hours to…
LAKE HURON Canatara Park, Lake Chipican Drive, Sarnia,ON https://w3w.co/wisdom.oldest.airbag 43.00631° N, 82.40193° W (150 miles)
Beautiful beach. Swim from 11:30 to noon. Decent washrooms if we want to change there. Note—swim to the right first. The current definitely pushes us west toward the river. We walked to the right (east) to the end of the beach and then swam to the right for a few minutes then made a U-turn to swim back west to the washroom building where our cars were parked. Head back to the USA. Take the first off ramp when you get across. Grab some lunch at …
OUR OLD PLACE CLOSED. PICKING A DIFFERENT SPOT! FOR 2027 we'll figure out something faster. Maybe a place we can order something at a counter so we don't wait for waiters and bills. Save a bit of time. 2026 wasn't as good as we hoped.
THIS IS OLD NOTES. I'LL UPDATE THIS PARAGRAPH. Palms Krystal Bar & Grill/Chicken in the Rough, 1535 Pine Grove Ave, Port Huron, MI 48060 https://what3words.com/calculating.units.prefer (7 miles) (Black and Blue Brewery is permanently closed. We'll try a new place.) Don’t miss the FIRST exit after you get off the Bluewater Bridge after entering the USA. Otherwise, you’re headed the wrong direction and it’s a long before you can get off) Keep it short. We’ll try and get on the road by 1:30. (Skip this stop and get fast food along the way if you want to save a little time.) About 4 hours to Biere de Mac Brew Works in Mackinaw City. 14277 Mackinaw Hwy, Mackinaw City, MI https://what3words.com/putting.info.politics (290 Miles) Regroup here. Have a quick, short beer, then over to
LAKE MICHIGAN Mackinaw City First Beach. E Wilderness Park Dr, Mackinaw City, MI 49701 https://w3w.co/iron.exhibitors.hormones (3 Miles) Turn left out of Biere de Mac, then turn left at the first road, Trails End Rd and follow it all the way to Lake Michigan. , We’ll try to be swimming shortly after 6pm and get on the road by 7. (last year it was more like 7:30). Cross the bridge. It’s less than an hour to
LAKE SUPERIOR
Brimley State Park 9200 West 6 Mile Road, Brimley, Michigan 49715 46.41661° N, 84.55833° W. https://w3w.co/clapper.beast.insurer (54 Miles) Swimming by 8:30, done before sunset. If there’s a problem with Brimley State Park (they had a no-swim warning due to e-coli July 2024) go about 7 miles west to Point Iroquois Lighthouse. https://w3w.co/ruining.snacks.competition
(Since leaving home—859 miles, plus whatever incidental extra miles we did. So 900. And we’re still up north and have to go home. So add another 300 for that.) (Lisa clocked 1209 miles for the whole trip from GR--from home back to home)
Afterglow at the Casino Back Bar (at the west end of the Casino) about 3 miles west of Brimley State Park. Food was good and inexpensive. In 2023, some of the guys got them to heat up some frozen pizza at the Cozy Inn, 11204 W Lakeshore Dr. Casino is probably the best bet.
Stay in Sault Ste Marie for the night—lots of chain hotel/motels on the southwest end of town.
If you’re staying up north for the Mackinac Bridge Swim, enjoy a couple days.
NOTE: This is a free event. Everyone books their own hotel and figures out their own transportation.
NOTE: If you click on the What3Words link for any of the location, you can click on their Navigate button and it will use your Apple or Google maps on your phone to take you to where you want to go. Pretty freaking cool.
NOTE: If you're going to use your phone to navigate, update your service so it works in Canada. Data too! Learn to use Find My on your iPhone so we can keep track of each other better. And get familiar with What3Words. It's a really cool way to find any spot on earth.
NOTES FROM PAST TRIPS: In 2023, we started swimming in Erie at 5:23am. Ontario 7:49am. Huron 11:24am. Michigan 6:48pm. Superior 8:45pm. Finished with sun still up.
In 2024 Erie at 5:10. Ontario 7:29. Huron 11:30. Michigan 6:02. Superior 8:15pm.
2025—Erie at 5:07. Water temp avg 70. Ontario 7:36. Temp 68. Huron 11:29am Temp 69. Michigan 6:25. Temp 72. Superior 8:29pm Temp 65. Five lakes in 16 hours.
2026--Erie at 5:06. Water temp avg 77. Ontario 7:28, Water temp 72. Huron 11:42. Water temp 74. Michigan 6:34 Water temp 74. Superior 8:37 Water temp 70. Warmest year so far.