The book was Elmer’s last wish.

By the time Helen Olson finished writing “Sailing Elysium,” about their 10-year odyssey across the Pacific Ocean, Elmer Olson weighed less than 80 pounds, down from 230 when they were sailing. He needed a wheelchair by that time and was fading fast – dying from a bone marrow disease he’d carried for decades.

Helen worried that the book, which the Olsons were publishing themselves, wouldn’t make it off the press in time. Daughter LeAnn Tobias says she believes Elmer held on just so he could see it published.

A star to steer by

Helen, 77, would rather garden than write. She’s not much of an indoor person. She grows much of her own food in a couple of greenhouses on her Florissant-area property.

After they finished sailing in 1989, she and Elmer moved to this sprawling ranch and settled into a life that was everything their decade on the ocean was not: cool, dry, stable.

“You have to be a certain kind of person” to sail, Helen says, “somebody who’s going to be willing to put up with a lot of discomfort.”

Helen, according to daughter Tori Capaci, was something of her family’s wild child.

“She was definitely one of those people who always marched to the beat of her own drum,” Capaci says.

In Elmer, she met a kindred spirit.

“He was a really easy person to be with,” Helen says. “He used to say to me ‘It’s a good thing you got me, because anyone else would’ve killed you by now.’ I’m not as easy as he is.”

Both had sailed as children and, after the two married in 1968, they’d walk along the Oregon shoreline and look out at the Pacific and talk about all the places the water could take them.

They eventually built a 50-foot yacht. They called her Elysium, after the classical Greek afterlife. For more than six years he spent most of his spare time working on it, recruiting family members.

Open waters

They launched the Elysium in 1979, planning to sail to Australia. She was 49, Elmer, 52.They sailed to Panama, then set off across the ocean. Their first stop was the Marquesas Islands – one month later. From there they hopscotched across the Pacific toward Australia, making friends along the way.

“It’s amazing to me, how they’d meet people,” Tobias says. “And how they’re still in touch with lots of those people to this day.”

The Olsons wanted to meet people in every port of call. They kept a chest full of gifts to hand out, in return receiving papaya, shrimp or a homemade meal. Helen would fix dinner for locals on the yacht, too.

“That’s what’s wonderful about a boat,” Helen says. “You can invite everyone into your home.”

Not all smooth sailing

But the Olsons received a less pleasant visitation on Tonga. A hurricane hadn’t hit Tonga in 21 years, so no one was worried. Boat owners and guests – many of them friends of the Olsons – were sipping cocktails just hours before the storm hit. It seemed unlikely the storm’s winds would reach 60 knots, or a little more than 70 miles an hour.

Hurricane Isaac surprised them all. They all took shelter with a Tongan family in the shell of their home. When the storm cleared, the beach was littered with broken yachts – among them, the Elysium, a gaping hole in the hull.

“I just thought, ‘Well, it’s gone,'” Helen said. “This is as far as we got.'”

Not quite. It took nearly three months for Elmer, working with locals, to stitch the hole with steel, cement and epoxy. They bonded with locals, who cooked for them and encouraged them.

Put to the test

The hurricane may have been the most dangerous part of the trip, but it wasn’t the hardest. It took 19 days to sail from New Zealand to Australia – a trip expected to take nine days.

“We just had gale after gale, horrible weather,” Helen says.

In the ocean, there is no 911 to call when things go wrong. Like when Elmer caught his finger in a winch, cutting it to the bone. Or the time he got a sliver in his eye, which Helen fished out with tweezers as the boat rocked.

They also tackled other dangers of such travel: day-to-day conflicts that lead to divorce and estrangement.

“Elmer always used to say if I knew what it was going to be like, I never would’ve gone,” Helen says. “It was rough.”

Shortly after they sold the boat and returned to the States, they learned about Elmer’s disease. Doctors said he had five years left to live. He survived nearly 20.

Ocean of memories

Elmer died July 16. “He really didn’t want to go,” Helen says.

Helen says Elmer wanted the book to be more about people than places.

“Every time we did a slide show for people, he said ‘You gotta write about this. People don’t realize that people are so wonderful out there.'”

Event sponsor Tom Naughton, from left, Manuel Talamantes and Christine Lyle of the Community Partnership for Child Development. Photo by