In the not-too-far-gone days of my childhood in northern Minnesota, I remember my favorite days being the windy summer days on Park Point, when the breakers would come in and we would bodysurf in the biggest freshwater lake in the world. Normally, the water never gets much above 50 degrees just a few inches below the surface, but if there was an East or Northeast Wind, it blew all the surface water towards the point, and if you were tough you could spend upwards of 10 minutes at a time in the water.
In the past decade or so, there has been an increasing population of Freshwater Surfers on the lake, and far from sticking to the warm, windy days in the summer, they surf year round. Now, I've swum in Lake Superior every month of the year, and while it's true that the water is much warmer than the air in the middle of the winter, it's still a risky proposition, and for me usually a "jump in, jump out, warm up" maneuver.
These guys, while fully equipped, are still tough. Here's, yet another, NYT article profiling them.
The Freshwater Surfers.
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