Camp

Electric Boats are coming...

One of the hardest things to deal with at Water Monkey Camp is our impact on the planet. We burn roughly 120 gallons of fuel each day running our wake boats. We have always offset all of our CO2 emissions each season but I would much rather not pollute in the first place! The wake boat manufacturers have been slow to innovate with nearly no electric or hybrid options available (the Nautique GS22e is a one-off).

That’s why this article from a local solar installation company is some good news. The founder of Revision Energy retrofitted his small boat with a fully electric outboard motor. 25 hp is not quite what we need to wakeboard, ski and surf all summer here but it is a step forward for boats and hopefully will get the big companies at least thinking about cleaning up their fleets so that one day we can run clean wake boats on our pristine lake.

Article below:

Revision Energy: Electric Outboard

Down to the wire!

Things have been crazy here at camp! We have had so many projects come together just as our staff and campers are about to arrive.

First, let’s rewind to fall ‘21 when we lifted, leveled and built new footings for all of our cabins.

It was a major project and we are so lucky that a super experienced carpenter/contractor tackled it. He first calculated what height the cabin should be at and then, with a laser level, figured out how much each part of the cabin needed to be lifted. This had to happen slowly because of the age of the cabins and how long they have had to settle. If he had lifted them too quickly the wood frames could have broken!

With the cabins raised and leveled, he next dug four foot deep holes and poured new concrete footings which he attached to the building with new, craftsman quality wood trusses. That meant not only a lot of digging and pouring new concrete but also removing the old footings which were mostly cinder blocks. All said and done I moved and stacked four pallets of cinder blocks!

I definitely put my truck to work this offseason! I have brought 20 loads of demolition debris to our dump since August of '21! I probably should have rented a big dumpster but that’s what work trucks are for, right?

With the cabins newly level and on solid footing for the first time in decades it was time to tackle the big goal of the offseason, new bathrooms in every cabin. The existing ones were dark, soggy and, truthfully, a bit gross. My goal with the new bathrooms was to create bright, durable and easy to clean spaces for our campers and guests. I was not great at capturing pictures of the whole process but we ripped out all of the old fixtures, cut out and removed all of the walls up to about 34” and then removed the entire floor, subfloor and joists. Our amazing contractor, Trevor, then rebuilt the rooms from the joists up to the ceiling.

The project was super complicated because each bathroom is different so pretty much every floor, piece of trim and plumbing upgrade was custom. They came out so great, though, and we could not be happier to show our campers!

Of course what would a camp project be without some unexpected issues? As we tore apart the bathrooms we found some leaks in the old roof on one of the cabins. With a new roof definitely not in the budget, camp director and master of absolutely no trades, Evan, hopped to action to lay some rolled asphalt roofing over the bad section of roof. A few weeks later we found some leaky areas on another cabin and, in a driving rainstorm, I again climbed up to patch a spot and save the new bathroom!

Interspersed with the other large projects I also wrapped up the renovated dock for our boats. After installing the new floats I also replaced a few broken planks with new trex decking.

And it is awesome to have a dock that is floating again!

As if all of that was not enough, I also rebuilt all of the mulch beds and landscaping around the cabins! It was a long-overdue project and the cabins now look fantastic. I surrounded each cabin with new river stone to help with drainage and also to secure the new lattice from animals looking to make a home. I then dug up all of the old mulch and dirt, uncovered stones to build new rock boundaries and then filled it all in with natural mulch from locally-felled trees.

And seriously, lastly, cabin 5 received all new windows! The old ones were barely functional and the new windows will let in more light while also functioning better (actually opening and closing).

Whew. That was a lot. As we begin our staff training week it is so satisfying to see the camp looking better than ever.

-Evan

Project Complete!

One of my two major projects this season was to completely replace all of the floats on camp’s massive dock. Over the past few seasons I have noticed that the dock had a tendency to…sink so it was time to do some work!

Our dock is three pieces that make a roughly 40’ by 30’ ‘T’ shape. One piece gets pulled up on shore for the winter and the other two pieces live up on the hill behind our local marina. Here they were in December:

The first step was sourcing plastic floats that were roughly the same size as the existing ones. With the ongoing supply chain issues in all sectors this proved slightly difficult but I managed to find some great ones from a dock supply company in Florida. I won’t shock you with how much new plastic floats cost!

The next step was to remove the old floats. They were HEAVY, mostly fully of water, and all of the bolts were rusted permanently in place. Ratchets worked on some bolts but some required cutting, prying or just general banging until they broke free. I used a hydraulic jack to lift the dock frame section by section and slide the old floats out to make room for the new ones.

My work pictures end there because it got too involved to measure, drill and bolt in the new floats with stainless steel hardware. At the end I replaced nine floats using 36 sets of bolts, lock nuts and washers. Drilling the aluminum dock ate up three specialty drill bits. I tore open eight of my ten knuckles fighting with rusty bolts. In all it took around 30 man-hours to get it done from start to finish!

Many thanks to my dad, Wayne, a retired physician who also happens to be super helpful with projects like these and is willing to work for free!

new hampshire lake view

Here is the view from the worksite on top of the hill! Our marina stores hundreds of boats on the hill in super organized lines that stretch for miles!

Check back soon as we complete our other major project this spring…all new bathrooms for each cabin!

We went for a hike!

We have been spending lots of time at camp lately. It is such a good spot to stay isolated and avoid the pandemic craziness. We know we are fortunate to have this escape and we try to take advantage of everything the lakes region has to offer.

He’s probably a bit too big for the backpack but Kai was not about to hike the mountain on his own!

He’s probably a bit too big for the backpack but Kai was not about to hike the mountain on his own!

Mt. Molly is a great little ‘mountain’ right beyond the banks of Merrymeeting Lake, where our camp is located. I have hiked it hundreds of times…with campers, with friends and even a daily run up to the summit while training for a Tough Mudder in 2010. Taking my own kids up, though, is a new and awesome experience.

The trail up. Not much snow this year!

The trail up. Not much snow this year!

With almost no snow and mild temps the going was easy even with 40 pounds on my back (some combination of Kai (3 years old) and snacks for Kai (limitless). We talked about trees, animal tracks and rocks for the whole 25 minute trek up to the peak.

At the top we soaked up the sun and took in the views of the lake and surrounding hills. We spotted a bald eagle, a hawk and a few airplanes as well!

Looking west-ish at sprawling Lake Winnipesaukee!

Of course I had to fly camp’s new drone on this gorgeous bluebird day! The above shot is from about 1,200 feet above the summit of Mt. Molly looking out over Lake Winnipesaukee. Gorgeous.

Merrymeeting Lake

Merrymeeting Lake

From the same altitude I snapped a few shots of Merrymeeting. The sun glare was pretty intense so the back side of the lake was the only picture that was worth keeping. As you can see, mid January and not even close to frozen!

Look up, look down.

Look up, look down.

The above shot is of the peak of Mt. Molly. We are standing directly in the middle (if you zoom in you can see us standing near my black coat which I used as a takeoff/landing pad for the drone.

The hike down was quick and Kai loved every second of the day. Being in the outdoors is the best!