mastercraft

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!

2019 season recap

The 2019 Water Monkey Camp season was fun, full and over far too fast. Our eighth year of camp was again our biggest as we continued to grow (and expand to other lakes). Campers achieved insane progression and, as always, disconnected from the ‘real world’ for a week or more of pure enjoyment on the lake.

Merrymeeting Lake from above looking back towards camp.

Now some fun 2019 stats!

  • 133 campers over 7 weeks (plus 18 campers over 2 weeks of day camp)!

  • Campers stayed an average of 1.23 weeks at camp (longest stay by any camper was 4 weeks by the one and only Elijah Goldberg (15 weeks of camp since 2014!))

  • Average number of campers per week was 19

  • Campers were 29% girls and 71% boys

  • Average camper age was 13.74

  • 50% of campers were returners, 50% were first timers

  • Campers came from 16 states (CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, OR, PA, VA, VT) as well as Canada, Dominican Republic, France, Morocco, Peru and Singapore!

  • 6 coaches, 1 director, 1 chef and 1 pro wakeboard bum who lived at camp

  • 3,596 gourmet meals prepared and served by amazing Chef Rebecca

  • 500 pounds of food scraps diverted from the landfill to local hungry pigs!

  • 38 delicious lunches provided by Tucker’s for our new Lake Sunapee Day Camp!

  • 0 minutes of camper cell phone time!

  • 11,249 unique visitors to watermonkeycamp.com in the past 12 months

  • 220,000 ad impressions on Google!

  • 15,371 photos uploaded for parents and campers to enjoy

  • 16 crazy Tuckerman ‘blackouts’ on the beach

  • Campers were pummeled by 2,500 water balloons during Monkey Ball

  • Infinite smiles, laughs and good times

  • Average water temperature during camp was 77 degrees

  • 272 hours on the black/black MasterCraft NXT22 (a.k.a. Betty) and 283 hours on the white/blue MasterCraft NXT22 (a.k.a. Fred) for a total of 555 hours of boating!

  • 16 oil changes

  • 1 broken propeller (hit a submerged object)

  • 3304.432 gallons of gas consumed on the lake producing roughly 35 metric tons of CO2 offsett with contributions to cooleffect.org (specifically the Alto Mayo Conservation Initiative) as well as the Society for the Protection of NH Forests. Our total contributions will offset about 70 metric tons of CO2 this year with the extra offsets going towards camper travel to/from camp.

That is it for the 2019 recap! As always I hope to see all of our campers back again in 2020 for more watersports fun so please keep us in mind as you start to plan out your summer. I am always here to answer your questions so feel free to e-mail, call, snail mail or set up a time to visit.

Sincerely,

Evan Goldner

617-855-9253

evan@watermonkeycamp.com

it's been a while!

Yikes! We have not posted since early May! We had such a busy, awesome season at the lake there just has not been time to sit down at the computer and type anything. The summer is winding down, though, so we can refocus some attention towards our neglected blog!

Last week I had an hour to kill so Tuckerman and I ran up Mt. Molly to take in the view of the lake. No foliage yet which means summer is still in full effect!

These late summer days are pretty awesome here at Merrymeeting. The end of the season is also a bit bittersweet as we say farewell to our barely used boats.

After camp we were booked solid with private lessons but both boats were sold early in September so the fun had to end. The Black NXT22 (Betty) went with its new family down the road to Rochester, NH while the blue NXT22 (Fred) is currently traveling across the country to Bend, OR! I gave both boats a full detail, oil change and topped off the gas for the new owners before they rolled out of the driveway.

On Fred’s last day at camp (Monday, September 26) we had a beautiful sunrise and calm water. That steam coming off of the lake is really just the nice warm water turning cold (although as of yesterday, September 21, the lake was still in the high 60’s!).

Just because the campers are gone does not mean there are no kids having fun at Water Monkey!

Finn and Kai have been taking full advantage of the entire property. The beach is now their private play zone and the upper property is a giant driving course for their Raptor PowerWheels!

That is it for now. As always you should follow our Instagram account (@watermonkeycamp) for more consistent posts. Coming in the next couple of weeks will be our season recap!

Get out and have some fun!

-Evan

april showers bring...may showers

As hard as I try I cannot control the weather. In the summer I wish I could snap my fingers and make the wind disappear on the lake. Come winter I would like to dance a jig and get a few feet a powder. Every fall…well fall in NH is pretty perfect. This spring, though, I have definitely been trying to will the rain away but have had no luck yet. It is great for our trees, grass and the health of the lake but is really delaying our landscaping, painting and outdoor work at camp (and keeping mountain biking trails too wet to ride).

These shots are typical of the weather lately. The lake is super high (and a wee bit chilly still). Up at the cabins I was on the roof blowing leaves and pine needles away and snapped this shot just before the sky opened up on me.

The bottom line is that, according to our instagram poll yesterday, 72% of you say the sun will make an appearance again someday and that is good enough for me!

See you outside!

2018 season recap

Our season just ended and it was the biggest and baddest since I launched the camp seven years ago. In 2018 we had my favorite staff of all time, so many awesome campers and the two coolest boats I could imagine. Many thanks to everyone involved for helping make it all happen.

In this recap I want to focus on friendships at camp. Seeing new friendships form, grow and continue for years has easily been my favorite part of running Water Monkey. So many of our campers have made friends here at camp and then brought those relationships back home by meeting up during the year (even flying and visiting each other as far as Europe from the U.S.), coordinating vacations together, going to the same college together and keeping in constant contact via social media.

On the first day at camp most of us are strangers. After seven days together on the boats, at meals, playing sports and having fun it can be difficult to say goodbye. I always knew that Water Monkey would be a special place where like-minded campers and staff would meet and get to know each other but I guess the extent to which it has surpassed my expectations is a testament to how unique our camp program is.

Water Monkey Camp as a whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts...you can buy yourself an epic boat and some gear and spend a week out on the lake but you’ll me missing a bit of magic that happens here each summer.

Now some fun 2018 stats!

  • 126 campers over 7 weeks!

  • Campers stayed an average of 1.21 weeks at camp (longest stay by any camper was 4 weeks by Stan tha man)

  • Average number of campers per week was 18 (we limited each week this summer to 18 campers and were full every week)

  • Campers were 68% boys and 32% girls

  • Average camper age was 13.9

  • 57.9% of campers were returners, 42.1% were first timers

  • Campers came from 15 states (CO, CT, DC, GA, IL, MA, ME, MT, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VA and VT) as well as Canada, China, France and Italy!

  • 2,055 gourmet meals prepared and served by amazing Chef Rebecca

  • 400 pounds of food scraps and waste diverted from the landfill to local hungry pigs!

  • 10,804 unique visitors to watermonkeycamp.com in the past 12 months

  • 10,363 photos uploaded for parents and campers to enjoy

  • 3 baby loons on the lake

  • 1 Taylor Swift concert at Gillette Stadium

  • Infinite smiles, laughs and good times

  • Average water temperature during camp was 78 degrees

  • Merrymeeting Lake is 1,100 acres and the cleanest lake in New Hampshire

  • 24 hours spent cleaning boat insides during the season and 20 hours spent washing and waxing the outsides

  • 254 hours on the Calypso Green MasterCraft NXT22 and 234 hours on the Jetstream Blue MasterCraft NXT22 for a total of 488 hours of boating this season!

  • 2,800 gallons of gas consumed on the lake producing roughly 25 metric tons of CO2 offsett with contributions to cooleffect.org (specifically the Alto Mayo Conservation Initiative) as well as the Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire who, along with many Merrymeeting Residents and the US Forest Service, is attempting to raise $1,500,000 preserve 2,000 acres of forest surrounding our perfect lake. Our total contributions will offset about 50 metric tons of CO2 this year with the extra going towards camper travel to/from camp.

I hope that all of our campers, staff and their families have a terrific year and that you keep us in mind as you start planning your 2019 summer. Our tuition will be going up next year for the first time in five years but we do not want you to miss out on camp because of that. As always we will be offering a $300 referral bonus for every new camper you send our way who enrolls and new this year by parent requests is the option to set up a payment plan for your camper’s tuition. I am always here to answer your questions so feel free to e-mail, call, snail mail or set up a time to visit and we hope to see you back here next summer!

Sincerely,

Evan Goldner

617-855-9253

evan@watermonkeycamp.com