2015 season recap

The 2015 Water Monkey Camp season was super fun: below is a quick recap of what we got up to this year.

We were finally able to move to our new, permanent location and it blew away all of our expectations with campers and staff making the most of it each day.  The extra space, idyllic lakeside location, and upscale cottages gave everyone something (or many things) to be constantly smiling about...not to mention the two ridiculous wake boats on our private beach and dock with boards and gear for days!

(At the bottom of this post are links to all pictures from 2015)

Our pristine lake and gorgeous setting are part of what makes camp amazing so we do everything we can to keep camp 'green'.  This year we saved over 4,800 miles of driving and 300 gallons of fuel by moving to our new property and not driving back and forth to the lake each day.  Our boats still consumed 1675 gallons of gas over eight weeks which produced roughly 15 metric tons of CO2.  We offset that pollution by planting 200 trees through CarbonFund.org (50 extra to help cover camper travel to/from camp).  On top of that we also changed all of the lightbulbs on the new property to CFLs or LEDs, reducing approximately 80% of the power required to light the camp at night.

Many thanks to all of our campers and their families for coming to camp, to my all-star staff for working 24 hours a day to give our campers the time of their lives, and my friends and family for endless support and unpaid manual labor.

Here are some fun stats:

• 60% new campers, 40% returners (big growth year for us!)
• Campers came from 12 states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Vermont) as well as Canada, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, and Switzerland!
• Campers were 70% boys, 30% girls.
• Average camper age was 14.02702.
• Average number of campers per week was 11.02 (that means lots of boat time for each camper).
• 0 hospital visits!
• One (almost) runaway camp fire.
• Infinite jokes.
• 14,218 unique visitors to www.watermonkeycamp.com in the past 12 months.
• 3,195 meals served by our amazing and creative chef Jessica!
• Approximately 1,440 eggs cracked (give or take a dozen).
• 56 gallons of milk poured (give or take a few gallons).
• 205 hours of shredding on the Axis A22 and 135 hours on the Centurion!
• 35 group stretching sessions.
• 1 sighting of the Aurora Borealis.

Next summer is our 5 year anniversary and we are gearing up for our best and biggest season ever.  We just purchased a brand new, 2016 Mastercraft NXT 22 (http://www.mastercraft.com/boat/detail/nxt22) to go along with our 2015 Axis A22.  This boat has a mellow but crisp wake for wakeboarding and the Mastercraft Gen 2 Surf System for perfect waves.  I know that our campers will love this boat!  On top of that we just ordered a new quiver of wake surf boards from Phase 5 and a whole new line of 2016 wakeboards and bindings from Liquid Force.

Word of mouth referrals are our greatest recruiting tool so please spread the word to friends, family, coworkers, and strangers on the street who may enjoy our program!

Feel free to call or e-mail any time and when you are ready to book your week(s) for 2016 hit me up and I will get it sorted!

Sincerely,

Evan Goldner (owner/director)

617-855-WAKE (9253)

evan@watermonkeycamp.com

Links below to pictures from 2015!

Week 2   Week 3   Week 4   Week 5   Week 6   Week 7   Week 8

The loch ness monster...wakeboard

When you hear about Loch Ness, in Scotland, you typically think of the prehistoric monster residing in its depths, popping his head out every few years for a photo, not as a testing ground for prototype wakeboards.  According to the below link, though, there was a secret mission this past summer by some of the best wakeboarders in the world to Loch Ness to test out the newest and best boards that their sponsors were working on. Loch Ness wakeboard testing

Enjoy the short article and, as always, keep shredding!

September on the lake!

I have always said that September is the most underrated month in the Lakes Region in New Hampshire.  The water is still in the 70's, the sun is strong during the day and, best of all, no one is out on the lake! I have been having a blast up on Merrymeeting offering private lessons to individuals, groups, and families as well as doing a lot of stand up paddling.  I found the below article on WMUR this week...it is good to see other people having some fun as well!

http://www.wmur.com/escape-outside/september-is-a-great-time-for-a-waterski/35300794

Enjoy the fall!

Goodbye old friend...

Last month we said farewell to the O.G. Water Monkey boat.  Our 2012 Centurion Avalanche C4 Special is what got us started and, while we were sad to see it go, it will provide many more hours of fun to a new deserving family.

Hundreds of our campers since 2012 have progressed their riding, surfing, and skiing behind this amazing boat.  As we pulled it out of the water for the last time we definitely marveled at how good the Centurion looked for a boat with 650 hours of camp use.  I hope that our new boats can last as long and perform as well.

I took one final shot of the boat as it departed with its new owners.  Adios!

Adventure fun in Lake Tahoe, California (and Nevada) - part 2

Having scoped out the lake from the shore and from the mountain peaks it was time to get out there.  Unfortunately I did not bring the Axis with me to California so wake surfing was out.  Good thing that paddle boards are everywhere so we (wife and I) grabbed two and some paddles and headed out on the water for some exploration.

Pictures do not do justice to the ridiculous clarity of the water in Lake Tahoe.  We are super spoiled on Merrymeeting Lake in NH with clean, clear water but this lake is on a different level.  You can cruise around on the board and without a problem look down to the bottom at 30 or 40 feet like it was right there.

We started early and the giant lake was perfect glass.  The scale of the lake was hard to comprehend when we were out there.  I picked a remote, isolated beach as a destination to explore and it took almost 90 minutes to paddle there in a straight line.  Coming from Merrymeeting Lake in NH that is only a few miles long it is hard to imagine that just crossing a small bay in Lake Tahoe is equal to the length of our lake.

We arrived at the little beach and parked our boards for a few minutes.  The view of the lake and mountains in any direction was amazing.  In the corner of the beach was a little cave that looked ripe for a grizzly home but fortunately (or unfortunately) there were no bears in sight.

After the beach break it was time to get back out there.  We paddled around some cool rock formations, into little coves, and generally just anywhere we thought looked interesting.  SUPing is always a good time and getting out on the big lake was a new experience.

...we did see a grizzly later that day

It is kind of blurry but this was the best shot I could get on my cell phone at the time.  The grizz came out of the woods in front of our car, sauntered across, and disappeared into the woods again.  Bears are sweet!