Lake Murray is ready for summer fun

Time to enjoy one of the area's recreational treasures: Lake Murray. Summer is when this 85-year-old manmade lake is teeming with activity – boating, paddleboarding, bird-watching, watersports and simply lounging.

The 41-mile-long and 14-mile-wide lake has plenty of wide open spaces for motorboats and enough coves for swimming and quieter pursuits. Visitors to the lake need only park at the Lake Murray dam to spend the day sunning and swimming at the public beach – which has picnic areas, covered shelters and restroom facilities.

Dreher Island State Park has 12 miles of shoreline and 348 acres of greenspace among three islands to enjoy. The park is open dawn to dusk, and overnight camping is available. You can also stay in small cabins, but those are booked well in advance.

Pontoon Rentals & Tours and others, including New Wave Board Shop in Columbia and Lake Murray Boating, offer paddleboard equipment for rent. Pontoon Rentals & Tours owner Ken Jones points out that paddleboarding is enjoyable and promotes physical fitness at the same time. Cooling off from the workout is just a splash away.

The going rate for paddleboard rentals is around $20 per hour. Learning is easy. Newbies often get it during a quick lesson. Whitecap Stand Up Paddle Boarding touts the water craze as introducing “the sublime joy” of the surf culture into one’s life.

City Yoga’s Stacey Millner-Collins is conducting paddleboard yoga sessions beginning June 20. Four sessions of yoga paddleboarding are being offered throughout the summer. The class is limited to 20 students for online sign-up; for details, go to cityyogasc.com and look under “Workshops & Events.”

There are plenty of different boats to rent for a few hours, the day or a weekend. Kayaks, canoes, and Go-Float electric boats are easy enough for most anyone to traverse around the roughly 600 miles of shoreline.

Consider a pontoon for larger parties of friends and family. Most are equipped with sunbathing areas, armchairs, a stereo system, grill and cooler.

Hanging out “on the pontoon…” as the Little Big Town song suggests is about “makin’ waves and catchin’ waves” and is often an all-day affair. Many of these boats accommodate up to 13 people.

Groups tool around for a while on the lake, find a deep spot, and stop to fish or swim. Tri-toons are larger and can hold more people. Some of these are for leisure, while others have enough get-up-and-go to tow tubes. One specialty version of a pontoon even has a water slide attached.

And then there are the made-for-speed Jet Skis and powerboats that pull wakeboarders, skiers, kneeboarders and tubers. A few places offer lessons for those learning to broaden their watersport horizons. Some, like Better Boating, will even teach tricks.

Boating rental and tour businesses are located all around the lake – from Lexington to Irmo to Chapin. For rentals, some require boat pickup, while others will deliver. Jones says he will not rent paddleboards to children younger than 16 or Jet Skis or motorboats to anyone younger than 25. Those interested should check specific restrictions and requirements.

Why do people flock to Lake Murray in the summertime?

“Why not?” says Jones. “People don’t have to drive to the coast, they don’t have to contend with sharks, and they don’t have to deal with salt water. There is something for everyone here.”

Deena C. Bouknight, Special to The State

This story was originally published May 27, 2015 at 2:02 PM.