I have the front and back of the boat tied off to trees on opposite shores and hovering over the deepest part of the pond. As the water level goes down, the boat floats down with it. I use a kayak to get out there to start it and refuel it. It has worked well for me.

I was surprised to see the difference in running it at 2/3 throttle vs wide open. It seems I get the same flow rate (about 25k gallons/hr) but less than half the fuel consumption. A fried of mine is a firefighter and said that this is typical of a volume regulated (not pressure regulated) pump. I imagine there are some principles of physics at play.

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

This is what my "days off" have looked like for about a year, but I'm nearing the finish line.