"Donal" wrote in message

Heh .... we haven't heard about the "Sea of Michigan" for a while.

Oddly enough, Lake Michigan and the other GLs aren't really lakes at all.
They would more correctly be termed inland seas. And I'll take the Roaring
Forties any day over Lake Michigan in hurricane force winds. The southern
ocean will get very, very big, but Lake M. will have almost no spacing
between the 40' waves, meaning a small boat will fall off the waves into the
trough as if dropped off a three-story building. Many a salty skipper
sailing container and bulk freighters from abroad have been humbled by the
GLs. Among the most oft-repeated tales in European and Asian ports are
those of storms on the Great Lakes.

Max