Three little acorns

If you know us at all then you are familiar with our obsession with the outdoors, recycling and saving the planet. This past spring we took three acorns from a nearby oak tree and gave them some love. Just six months later those little acorns are on their way to being trees!

They were in full fall mode in early November just about ready to shed their leaves for the winter. We were stoked to see this ridiculous growth and those brilliant colors. 

We plan on planting them on our property in the spring!

so what do you do all year?

When I tell people that I own a summer camp the first question I get, without exception, is "So what do you do all year?". I love running my camp and could go on for hours about everything I do so I decided to occasionally post about the various aspects of the job of camp owner/director.

Today's category is: Landscaping, subcategory: Storm Debris.

Fall is a slow time for camp. Parents are not really looking for next summer yet, we do not start recruiting staff until the winter and it is too early to be dealing with insurance and other paperwork but the one constant this time of year is landscaping. As the trees shed their leaves for winter we have to rake and pick them all up to keep the place looking good. Occasionally mother nature throws us an extra challenge in the form of a bigger than average storm. That happened last weekend when we got pummeled with 60+ MPH gusts of wind for two days. 

When the storm had cleared one of our large pine trees had shed a lot of branches. It ended up filling my truck three times over. No complaints, though, as I thoroughly enjoy this kind of work! The area around the tree went from total debris disaster to clean and neat in just an hour or so. Landscaping is always instant gratification!

Our small property is super easy to maintain. Before I started Water Monkey I ran a large camp on over 100 acres. After one ice storm I filled the big camp dump truck over 20 times with broken tree limbs and other debris!

I miss that old dump truck! 

That is it for this installment. Check back for more insight into how a camp director stays busy all year long.

2017 season recap

The sixth season of Water Monkey Camp is in the books and with autumn officially under way we are closing up for the year and reflecting on all of the good times, funny stories and great friends made in 2017. As always, camp would not be possible without our awesome campers and we thank you and your parents for keeping our program going. 

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Six years is such a short time for a summer camp when compared to the century-old programs in New England but we already know so much about what makes camp special. While we will always focus on offering superior watersports instruction it is the 'other stuff' that we all seem to remember the most. Being goofy, making up new games and sports, jamming out to great music on the boat, riding doubles just to high-five (or spray) a friend, using stand up paddle boards for everything except paddling, going back for thirds or fourths or fifths of a meal and so many more ridiculous 'activities' make up our summer at the lake.

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In the middle of the summer we filmed our new promo video (below) and the campers that week all got to take part in that unique and fun process. 

In September we said goodbye to our two camp boats, 2015 and 2016 model years, respectively, to make way for two brand new 2018 Mastercrafts! A moment of silence to remember the 'old' boats...

Our dearly departed fleet. Practically antiques!

Our dearly departed fleet. Practically antiques!

Now some fun 2017 stats!

  • 113 campers over 7 weeks (plus 18 in our family week!)
  • Each camper stayed an average of 1.5 weeks at camp (longest stay by two campers was 4 weeks)
  • Average number of campers per week was 16.14
  • Campers were 66% boys, 34% girls
  • Average camper age was 13.4
  • 39% of campers were returners, 61% were new (another big growth year!)
  • Campers came from 15 states (CT, DC, GA, IA, IL, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VA, VT) as well as Canada, China, France and Mexico!
  • 15 trips to Boston Logan and Manchester Airport 
  • 15,668 visits to watermonkeycamp.com in the past 12 months
  • 8,950 pictures uploaded for parents and campers to enjoy
  • 1 day of intense paintball carnage!
  • 9 lost SUP paddles (how do campers leave the shore with a paddle and come back without one!?)
  • 5 camper items retrieved from the lake by our scubadiving chef!
  • Shortest lifespan ever of a wakesurf board: 1 rider! 
  • Average water temperature during camp was 74 degrees
  • Average boat MPH was 15.08 (estimated based on % of time waterskiing / wakeboarding / wakesurfing / chilling) which means...
  • About 7,087 miles driven on the lake
  • 14 hours spent waxing boats
  • 220 hours on the Mastercraft and 250 hours on the Axis A22 (final hours were 450 on the Mastercraft and 680 on the Axis!)
  • 2,600 gallons of gas consumed on the lake producing roughly 25 metric tons of CO2 offset with contributions to https://www.cooleffect.org/ (Specifically the Alto Mayo Conservation Initiative as well as The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests to aid in their goal of protecting the Lakes Region (where we are located). Our donations will offset about 35 metric tons with the extra going towards camper travel to/from camp.
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We hope that you have a successful and fun-filled year and that as you start to think about next summer you will keep us in mind for a week or two again! We already have a number of eager campers signed up for 2018 so if you are ready to enroll just let me know. 

Lastly, please let us pay you to find us great new campers. We offer a $300 referral bonus deducted from your tuition for every camper you send our way who enrolls for at least one week. This is the best way for us to get awesome guys and girls who will enjoy our program here at camp and we cannot thank you enough for helping us spread the word.

Feel free to e-mail, write, call, text, FaceTime, telegram, carrier pigeon or visit any time!

 

Sincerely,

Evan Goldner

617-855-9253

evan@watermonkeycamp.com