Day 4: Life is Rich, Rich is a legend

On Friday we awoke to Rich (Boat Guy) and his dogs getting straight to business on Cat Sass. Although we had not told Rich that we had planned to camp on his farm, his benign silence suggested he didn't particularly disapprove. Rich then backed the boat into his massive garage, the Tamarack Farm barn, and got to work removing the 40hp Yamaha from Cat Sass and replacing it with a 115hp Johnson. While Rich and Corey (Rich's friend and little moon) worked, Clement and Bennett helped Rich lift the engines on and off, scrubbed the boat with Pine-Sol and unscrewed old furniture to be removed or cleaned. Meanwhile Piers and Nick drove to pick up coffee and food. The food was two "The Boss" sandwiches, each the size of a shoebox. They each each cost $6 and sustained the four of us until late that night. 

Once the motor was installed we took the pontoon back outside, hooked the motor up to a garden hose (so as not to overheat it) and started it up. The new controls worked beautifully. However, Rich suggested we switch out the fuel line and fuel tank because the existing ones were old and untrustworthy.

Piers and Nick rushed to a boat supply store, arriving 5 minutes before closing time to pick up the items in question. We hooked up the new stuff only to discover with horror that the motor had ceased working. It seemed not to be getting fuel but none of the obvious fixes worked. We still had a three hour drive ahead of us (Rich agreed to drive us and launch the pontoon in Dubuque) and we were running out of daylight. 

It was Rich against the machine. As options ran out we stood by and watched Rich cuss out the motor, parts and other entities while racking his brains for the answer. We were getting ready to spend another night in Rich's yard. Rich looked at the motor and shook his head. "I'm running out of gumption" he said. He disappeared into the garage. He reemerged a minute later with his iconic cup of coffee and a fresh cigarette. He had in fact far from run out of gumption we soon found. He continued to toy with the motor. Suddenly the motor was up and running. The Gelly brothers hastily packed the bags and got on the road (Nick had already left to return the U-Haul truck to milwaukee and meet us in Dubuque via bus the next day). Rich drove us, all our equipment and supplies, and the 30 ft trailer holding Cat Sass with great skill. He could have been driving a golf cart, at one point he held a banana in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

By we arrived in Dubuque it was after midnight. Rich backed the boat into the launch of the Dubuque Yacht Basin, a private club, and Cat Sass was on the river. We could barely believe it, high fives all around. Everything was perfect until we tested the motor which began making an ear splitting beeping noise as the controls were designed for a different engine. 

It was 1 a.m. and Rich, a true American hero, had to be on his way (he had to return our trailer we rented in Madison on his 2.5 hr drive home). Rather than move our boat that night, we slept on the bottom of the launch of the club. We set up our hammocks on our cluttered deck, expecting to be woken by early rising club members launching their boats to fish. We were happy to be finally on the river but were preoccupied by the new problems we were facing. We were also exhausted and very thirsty as we had no water.