LoopBy Brittany Fountain Photography by Allison Potter Think about The Loop at Wrightsville Beach; that simple sidewalk that circles the central part of the island has become a hot spot for locals and tourists. On any given day, hundreds of people come to walk, run or ride around. How could a sidewalk possibly be so popular to have its own Facebook page with more than 9,000 likes? T o lifetime local and avid water skier Jean Lawler, The Loop has a very different meaning — one that does not include a sidewalk full of runners, but channels full of calm open water, ideal conditions for practicing a fading art form: water skiing. Lawler recalls the sport’s heyday in the early 1960s. allowed the team to perform. Lawler was a member and, even though she is too modest to ever say it, must have been pretty good because she was invited to join the legendary Cypress Gardens Water Ski Team. 53 “It was always flat water because the wind protected it,” she says. “This was before all of the buildings you see on Wrightsville Beach were there.” Seapath Marina was built in the 1970s and without the influx of boat traffic there was absolutely no wake. With no-wake zones boats were easily able to reach more than 30 mph speeds, enough to pull water skiers, under and around the three bridges that connect Banks Channel, Motts Channel and the Intracoastal Waterway, or Lawler’s loop. “We skied the loop long before it was the walking loop,” Lawler says. It was nearly 50 years ago that Wrightsville Beach had a local water-skiing team. It put on shows with ramps and grand dis-plays, performing for crowds in Banks Channel and in the Carolina Beach basin. Even Boiling Springs Lake had deep water that Jean Lawler’s love of waterskiing spans five decades. Jean and her husband, Eddie, bring their Grady-White back to Bradley Creek Marina after an evening outing. www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
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