That is seriously some of the best water modeling I've ever seen.
I would heartily concur...
We have an old MRR book with an American Flyer locomotive on the cover that I had as a boy. I remember their illustration of cutting a hole in the table and building a 'bowl' using paper strips attached to the underside of the rim. It was painted, a stick or two was added for a sunken log, and then a piece of glass was placed over it with the shoreline molded in plaster. Looked good to me then!