The Blue Hole is a
Pine Barrens land mark, often forgotten. It is one of the homes of the
Jersey Devil and has an interesting history. It is said that the Blue Hole is actually the result of a meteorite strike in the middle of what is now the Winslow Wildlife preserve. Supposedly, it is
bottomless, always
ice cold, and
blue, which obviously gives it its name. There are stories of people drowning and never being seen again.
An article in a magazine on myths and legends of New Jersey told the story of a man and several of his friends who wanted to test how bottomless the Blue Hole actually was. They decked themselves out in life jackets and got themselves a row boat. When they had paddled out into the middle of the pond they sent overboard a weight connected to 900 feet of fishing line. After seven feet it hit bottom. So much for it being bottomless.
I have actually visited the Blue Hole at night. Its quite a journey. First you have to follow 73 east way down into Winslow, and from there follow a couple of back country roads until you hit the Winslow Wildlife Preserve. I don't recomend driving in, because unless there's been a several weeks drought (like when we went) your car will sink in the Pine Barrens sand. Be prepared to walk in about a mile and a half, straight through the woods. Eventually, you come to a stream which has to be crossed and is usually deep. Then its another hundred feet back to the actual pond. Its not very big at all. Since we went at night we couldn't tell if it was blue or not but we could see that it was covered in algae. My friend Rachel stepped right in and waded around a bit with no drowning or disapeering (this was before we had read the above article). It was indeed freezing, but there was no Jersey Devil in sight.
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