The weather for mid-October was warm and sunny, with shore temperatures in the upper 60's. Dave, Ann, Linda and I left Locey's Pike's Bay condo south of Bayfield, WI, in their SeaRay 200 S/R for a spin around Lake Superior's Apostle Islands. The water was smooth in the harbor. As we moved out of the harbor the water developed into an easy one-foot chop; nothing to cause any problems.

Dave headed up the shore on a 30° course that took us past Basswood and Hermit Islands before changing course to about 80° toward Presque Isle Point on Stockton Island five miles away. We cruised on plane about 30 mph all the way until slowing to glide into the harbor at Presque Isle about 3:00 PM. As we approached the docking pier at close-throttle speed, Ann said she though she smelled burning rubber, and Linda and I also sensed it as soon as she mentioned it. The smell was obviously coming from the engine compartment, and when I opened the engine cover, the smell became more pungent. Lying in the bilge was a shredded water pump and alternator belt.

Thoughts of Gilligan's Island adventures crept into our minds. We walked up the harbor pier, a wide concrete slab nearly 200 feet long, to shore where a brown wooden park building with a visitor center was located. On the way up, all of us were taking mental inventory and trying to figure out how we were going to overcome the broken belt problem and get us and the boat back to Dave and Ann's Bayfield condo before darkness fell.

A pocket check yielded a Swiss Army knife, cigarette lighter, some keys, a small pocket camera, my wallet and a cell phone. Dave's cell phone was aboard the boat, but we had no tools, no spare belts or anything else that looked like it could be helpful in solving our problem. I'm thinking, "What would McGyver do in a situation like this?" Obviously, he'd try to manufacture a make-shift belt that would last long enough to get us back to real live land!

On shore we found some U.S. Government issue nylon rope... attached to a life ring. We hacked off about 6 feet in case it might prove to be of use later on. I also thought about the belt around my waste, but it was obviously too small...

Up one of the trails was a sign indicating the direction to the Park Ranger's residence. We walked to it, looked in the window and knocked, but it already was vacated for the winter and no one was inside to help us. We walked back down to the pier where our disabled boat was tied up and attracting a small crowd of boaters who had also stopped at the pier. One fellow looked for a belt aboard his sailboat and produced one which proved to be about an inch too big for the adjustment range on the alternator to handle. We tried to see if somehow we could tie the yellow nylon rope around the motor and water pump pulleys, but fastening it was going to be difficult at best. I thought of trying to fuse the rope together using the cigarette lighter, but we thought better of it until we thought the situation through a little more.

Then someone suggested Duct Tape, and everyone nodded in agreement that we could fasten the two broken ends of the old belt together with it. After a few minutes, someone produced a small roll of the all-purpose substance and we got busy wrapping strips of it around the broken ends of the old belt. After the wrapping was finished, we reinstalled the belt and crossed our fingers. Dave fired up the engine and the belt went around a few times before quickly flying apart. It was thrown from the three pulley's on the front of the engine back into the bilge below.

Now the situation looked a little more serious. It was 4:00 pm, and we were about out of options. We began to wonder if we could call for help on our cell phones, but were afraid that we would not be in telephone range or that no one would be around to answer our call for assistance should we be able to hit the closest cell site. Dave got a phone number for his marina, but didn't get an answer. Next we started thinking about calling 911... or else figuring out where we were going to stay on the island overnight!

We took the remaining Duct Tape and decided to try to make a new water pump belt out if it. We stretched out about four feet of tape and wrapped it sticky side out around the two pulleys, skipping the alternator pulley, and pulled it as tight as possible before sticking it together to itself. once it was joined, we folded the edges of the tape back over itself inside the pulley track. It was fairly loose, but it didn't take much force to turn the water pump pulley. We crossed our fingers again as Dave turned the ignition key and fired up the engine. Several seconds later the engine settled into idle speed and the make-shift Duct Tape belt spun around slowly... turning the water pump! For the first time in an hour we had the sense we might just make it back to Bayfield and not have to spend the night huddled under piles of leaves on Stockton Island.

We put the engine cover back in the boat and pushed it into place. Dave took off slowly at about 1400 RPM on a heading of 240° into the setting sun toward Madeline Island and Bayfield. For the first hour Russ drove while Dave checked the four-horse outboard. We checked the Duct Tape belt every few minutes to satisfy ourselves it was holding together. Gradually Dave increased the engine RPM's to 1800. The engine temperature gauge held in the low range, so we knew the water pump was working. By 6:20 pm we reached the SW corner of Madeline Island and had the town of Bayfield in site! We were only about three miles out from the marina harbor when Dave decided to take the SeaRay up on plane and run the engine faster. For the first several minutes the Duct Tape belt continued to function, but after about five minutes the temperature gauge climbed quickly into the mid-range of the instrument. We checked the engine compartment. Our belt no longer was happily spinning around the pulleys; it was at the bottom of the bilge, still intact, but had spun off the pulleys due to the higher engine RPMs.

The temperature continued to climb as we roared into the marina harbor before Dave cut the speed down to idle to slow us down and quickly shut off the engine to prevent it from over-heating. We had made the 16 mile trip back with our make-shift repair only to be adrift again in the harbor entrance! Dave came to the back of the boat and pulled the starter cable on the 4-horse outboard trolling motor and it spun up to life. We had power again, such as it was, at least enough to push us at about two mph back to the slip area in front of Dave's condo.

Normally, Dave always backed the boat into his slip, and today was going to be no different. We maneuvered the boat so the stern faced the dock about fifty feet away. Then we heard Dave exclaim, "Hey, wait a minute, this thing doesn't have a reverse gear!" We're sitting in the water, stern toward the dock and the bow a scant 10 feet from the breakwater. In a flash, Dave spins the outboard 180 degrees around in it's mount and we're backing into the slip! A few maneuvers with the motor got us to within 15 feet, then the 4-horse quit! Ann and Dave grabbed paddles and together Dave and Russ paddled the SeaRay the remaining 15-feet up to the dock and with great relief tied it off.

We were home. Back at the condo. This sure beat camping out overnight on Stockton Island! We laughed and joked about our adventures while securing the boat, then walked up the dock and into the house to relax for the first time in several hours. In just a matter of minutes after getting back, nightfall was upon us and we laughed and joked more about our Rube Goldberg repair job that got us back safely before darkness fell. It was more fun than we'd had in a long time and turned out well despite the odds of making the repair and returning safely.

Sunday morning Dave and I drove to Bayfield to buy a replacement belt. We bought two and returned to the SeaRay. Unfortunately, neither was large enough to fit around the pulleys, so we made a quick return trip to the Amoco station to get two more larger belts. This time, the 46-5/8" belt fit perfectly. We fired up the engine and watched the Amp meter jump to nearly a +35 amp charge. We ran the engine for a few minutes longer until the charge rate dropped to the +10 amp range, satisfied that the battery, which brought us back safely the day before was coming back to a near-full charge condition. Half an hour later Dave threw his fishing pole in the boat and took off for an hour to do a little casting. The temperature had climbed into the mid-70's; a perfect fall football afternoon. At noon, the Vikings game started on TV, and I saved this story file, turned off the laptop computer, and went inside to watch the game.