By G. PATRICK PAWLING
Im partial to saltwater. It floats us better. Its got stranger critters. It comes with waves, not ripples. And it doesnt seem to rot things as quick.
But I recently found a freshwater place that rocked me. When I first saw it, a huge DUH slid out of the sky and landed right on my head. This is what I call being struck by the obvious. Sometimes it hurts. This time it didnt.
Man, I said to nobody in particular, because nobody in particular listens to me all the time. This is nice.
To me, Lake Lenape in Mays Landing is 350 acres of undiscovered wonderfulness, a manmade waterhole surrounded by woods and houses and bald eagles and people who know a lot about how to have fun on the water, even if it is fresh.
I realize Lenape is no secret, but my suspicion is there are a lot of people out there who, like me, are fixated on the ocean, the beach and the bays. Thats why it hit me so hard. Im shore boy. I had no idea.
I know at least two people who will be smiling when they read this. No, check that. Theyll be laughing at me and not with me. Thats because they get it.
One is fairly young. His name is Mark Cohen. Hes lived on the lake for four years.
The other is Elmer Ripley, who is 73. Hes lived near the lake all his life, and his family settled in the area generations ago. His is a family that traces itself to the Mayflower.
Ripley grew up in this water, swimming miles, fishing tons, diving off bridges, leading the kind of life where it was unimaginable that anybody wouldnt know how to swim.
Cohen, who grew up in the area, got hip to the lake when he took a summer job at Lenape Park, which sits on its eastern edge.
The reason theyll both be laughing? Once again, somebody from the shore discovers Something Really Cool that isnt tidal. Like thats news, right?
But look, heres the thing. You can have fun on freshwater! Its true! Its allowed! Its legal! (Which is saying something in New Jersey).
When it comes to the Lake Effect Lifestyle, Cohen is a good example. House overlooking the lake. Hot tub even closer to the water. Boat at the end of the dock, loaded with wakeboards. A rack filled with canoes and kayaks. Even a beach. And on weekends? Shoot man, hes got a crew that wakeboards better upside down than I do rightside up.
Cohen, a crazed barefooter back in the day, kills it on a wakeboard. Right there with him is the guy who wrote the book: Jason Weber, whose wakeboarding instructional book gives lots of good advice about how to get going and how to take it up several notches.
Ripley? If you think he hasnt had fun on this lake youre paddling up the wrong tributary. When he was younger, the winters were colder hes here to tell you thats fact, not myth and he remembers sail-powered iceboats screaming around on the lake, going about twice as fast as Cohens going on his wakeboard.
What, you thought all they did was sit around all winter hand-sawing ice into blocks before they had refrigerators? They did that too. The ice went into ice houses that kept the blocks layered in sawdust, and it lasted all summer.
But even then, people were allowed to have fun on the water.
Ive had six children and raised them all here and theyre all still here, believe it or not, said Ripley, who added that all 12 of his grandchildren are also in the area. There must be something here to keep that attraction, he said.
Roger that. Fed by one of the East Coasts great rivers, the Great Egg Harbor, Lake Lenape was created for reasons that arent any more clear than its cedar water. The dam that created it was built around 1848. But the first industry, a cotton mill, didnt come around until about 1867.
Why the lag?
Ive often wondered that myself, said Ripley, who knows his local history. Lenape Park, by the way, goes all the way back to 1906 or 07, Ripley said. It was started by a Lorenzo Leiling and for many years it was called Leilings Park.
And while I was expecting everybody else to be hip to this place except me, Ive since learned thats not the case.
Youd be surprised the people who live in the area who never get out on the water, said Mary Vavra, who is becoming a River Manager for the area for the National Park Service. Including locally elected officials.
Great. Now Im in the same league as locally elected officials.
Today the Great Egg Harbor River, which feeds the lake, is a Mecca for canoeing and kayaking, with the predictable bickering between landowners and the folks who run the rental places. Some people say the lake itself is getting too crowded. Its the kind of success the National Park Service sees at, say, Glacier National Park, where glaciers move faster than RVs on Going to the Sun Road. One big difference: Nobodys getting eaten by grizzlies at Lenape. Just bugs, which are marginally easier to kill if you have a big enough knife.
People who come here for the first time are flabbergasted that this place is so wild, said Perry Capiak, who runs Winding River Campground, which is on the Great Egg Harbor about three miles from the lake. There are bald eagles and beaver and otter, and its in the middle of this huge megalopolis between Philly and New York City. I mean, youve even got the (Hamilton) mall area out there, and its almost pristine out here. This is how you get kids to appreciate nature. Its one thing to see a bald eagle in a book. But I still get a chill when I see one here for real.
Speaking of wild and scenic, heres a picture that will make you smile. Imagine Cohen trying to learn to barefoot water ski, which is as hairball a sport as youll find, and its so early in the game that hes wearing those old Converse All-Star Chuck sneakers to give a little more planing surface. After one windmilling crash too many and a torn-up knee, wakeboarding started looking better. The thing is, wakeboarding didnt just change the lives of Cohen and Weber (who was a pro rider), it changed the culture of the lake. All of a sudden these surfer types were showing up and riding. You want to change a culture, just add surfers. Thats all Im going to say because I know surfers who could hurt me.
Wakeboarding introduced behind-the-boat sports to a whole generation of people, said Cohen. Surfers, skaters, all these people started coming out to the lake to try out a whole new sport.
Do some people not like seeing and hearing wakeboarding on the lake? You bet. The county, which owns and runs it, limits the number and size of boats, which has helped reduce friction. But my bet is some people hated those iceboats too. A dang nuisance, those things, whizzing around.
So look, Id think about moving out there to the lake if they could come up with a saltwater supply to rinse off my wetsuit at the end of the day.
(For more information on wakeboarding, try Webers site
www.sportsontheedge.com
To reach Pawling, e-mail onthewater@pawling.net or call 609-398-6593. To reach photographer Chris Polk, chris@polkimaging.com or 609-487-3141).
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