It’s hard to believe these pictures of gigantic, thrashing waves were not captured in the ocean but on the shallowest of the Great Lakes of North America. Lake Erie may be shallow (just 20 meters deep on average) but it isn’t small. It stretches for 388 km in length and has a maximum width of 92 km, making it the 11th largest lake in the world by surface area. And because the lake is shallow, conditions can change dramatically in just a matter of minutes, with fierce waves springing up unexpectedly. In fact, the tribe of Native Americans who lived along its southern shore called the lake "Erige" which means “cat” because of its unpredictable and sometimes violently dangerous nature. Lake Erie’s nasty storms have claimed no less than 1,400 ships and as high as 8,000 according to one estimate. Some say, Lake Erie has more "wrecks per square mile" than any other freshwater location on earth.