To be honest with you, ever since the black slime monster in Creepshow 2 as a young lad, I’ve been as equally ill at ease with lakes and fishing ponds (particularly those weird round ones with a swimming platform you sometimes see on farms in rural PA) as I have been with the ocean, as a whole.
This Star-Ledger fluff piece on local urban legends actually has done me a favor:
Sussex sea serpent
Lake Hopatcong boaters, swimmers and anglers share the water with a sea monster nicknamed Hoppie. Although the creature is regarded as a friendly inhabitant, there was a panic in 1894, when fishermen first noticed something lurking in the lake. The monster was described as 40 feet long, with the head of a canine and the body of a snake, “as thick as a man’s leg.” The archived news story includes quotes from doubters who suggested that the behemoth was probably a floating beer keg.
I have little fear of monsters and even less fear of beer kegs, so I think I’m alright here.