When do you start swimming in lake Michigan

I have heard of people starting in May, with a wetsuit. I ,too, would love to get out of the pool.

The Open Water Chicago people are out there right now. Reporting that it's about 45 degrees.

Me, I don't get in until Memorial Day weekend, and I CAN'T WAIT! Very much looking forward to it.

I did it in mid May once. Needless to say that was the last time I would do it.

just got back from Ohio St. beach after a swim with a few friends.  The water wasn't bad at all, butwe had wetsuits.   mid to high 50's if I would guess.  We spent about 50 minutes in the water.

We went yesteday afternoon. It was wavy, and cold. It was the first time I used a wetsuit, what a difference. The first 15 mins were tough but we settled in and swam the lenght of ohio st and back. It took about forty mins with the waves. We were bouncing all over the place. But it also gave us a good challange. The funniest thing was looking at the people looking at us. Looking forward to getting down there next week as we are going camping next weekend.

47 dgree water temp!  brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

47?!?!? ugh, I thought it was closer to 60!

Also, the park district  has made some small changes to issuing swim bans/checking for bacteria. It's real time now, as opposed to last year when they would test the bacteria on a Tuesday, and find out it was too high so close the beach on Wednesday (nevermind that people actually were swimming Tuesday when it was too dirty).

Keep in mind that "real time" monitoring is not testing, but predictive modeling.  Which you can, theoretically, still see the same issue of swimming on a Tuesday that has high levels and not knowing about it when they confirm with testing later.  Is it more accurate, probably, but it too will have failure points.

Gotta give me a bit more notice. 

Hope to start swimming on Friday's soon, though. 

This report says the water temp is 64... though given today's cold weather and rain it's probably much cooler.

http://www.cfmstage.com/beach-report/beach-report-detail.cfm?objectid=16

Is this the best place to check water temp? Also, what is "too cold" for a sleeveless wetsuit out there? Thanks all.

Did 1/2 mile today at Ohio St. about 2:00 and had it all to myself.  I only saw about 5 others-- I guess everyone hit it in the am.  Water temp was great (with full wetsuit) and relatively calm.  Quite a few boats partying offshore.

Does anyone know if they are going to put out the string of buoys?  They were not out today.