Monkeying around

We have had so much fun visiting places with wild animals and having the opportunity to interact with them. These are a couple friends we made!!!

Rio Chagres and Fort Lorenzo

To get away from (Dodge) Colon for a few days we sail 7 miles west and entered the Rio Chagres. Abundant fresh water for a washdown on the boat. Howling monkeys, beautifull birds and purple orchids cover the river banks. It is so nice to be surrounded by natural jungles as it existed many years ago and one of the few areas left untouched by mankind.

Fish Fish and More Fish

While underway we have caught many fish on our line. Tracy luffs the main and Louis pulls in and cleans all these bad boys!!!

A Kuna village in the San Blas Islands

We have stopped in several Kuna villages and here are a few pictures from our visits.

Trip from San Blas to Isla Grande, Panama

Well we are now excited to be headed to Colon to get registered and pay for the canal transit. We have been hear the waiting time to get through the canal is 4 weeks. WOW, We headed to Colon via a stop at Isla Grande where we had been for a few months before while working on Elysium. We had got to know and become family memners with the Preston family that owns a resturant and hotel there on the island. This island also has a lighthouse that Tracy hiked to many times for her morning walks on the island. This lighthouse was designed by the same guy that designed the Ifle Tower in France. unfortunatly Tracy never took the camera on her walks to the lighthouse so no pics from there. here is some pictures of the Preston family and the nice Tuna we caught while having ther Preston family aboard for a day sail

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Kuna Indian girls visit Elysium

We were underway and after repairing the water maker we decided to stop at the San Blas Islands again and this time we decided to stop further east in the islands in which not too many boats normally stop in..A place called Playon Chico and it was a very cool place. we were also able to make friends with some of the staff at the Kuna resort there. We invited them aboard the boat and the manager said they were not allowed to leave the island to visit any boats due to a problem tghat happened a few years back with 2 Kuna girls visiting a yacht. Anyway, after the manager left for the afternoon the girls begged us to show them our sailboat. Apparently they have never seen athe inside of a yacht. these are several Kuna Girls that Tracy got to know

Adventures of Elysium

Hello from us aboard Elysium. We are sailing around the world and will keep you updated as we go and post pictures as well to keep you up to date. We started this blog when Jeremy and Angela were aboard with us from San Blsa to Cartegena Columbia. Thanks to Jeremy and his knowledge of bloggers we were able to make this happen. unfortunatly, I hit the wrong button a few days ago when attempting to upload some photo´s and deleted the few entries we had already written. Of course I was in a spanish internet cafe. OK, I´m still a novice at spanish so, here we go again...

As we were anchored in the San Blas Islands deciding where to head. we all wanted to make the trip to Cartegena because we all have heard so many good things about this city in Columbia. A few days into the week and the winds were predicted to be 20 to 25 knt winds NE and seas 9-11ft and we all looked up and said lets set sail. We raised the sails, running with a small yankee cut head sail, double reef in the main and a single reef in the mizzen. Ok, some sailors like the calms of 5 knots winds and then they start their motors and motor most of the way. We are a sailing boat and try to use the motor at the least of times.

The trip took us more than 4 days beating on a single tack. We could not make Cartegena in one tack and we were all very tired so we ended up stopping in isla Bernardo´s south west of Cartegena, a very beautifull spot indeed. after a few days there of rest and exploring we headed north for Cartegena and again the afternoon winds and seas picked up and we could only make it to the Rosarios islands north west of Cartegena..One day there and we headed for the break water of Cartegena.

We were in Cartegena for about 12 days, having some work done on the boat, a little site seeing and some surfing for Jeremy.

The trip from San Blas to Columbia with Jeremy and Angela aboard was a real treat for sure. I miss them dearly and hope we hook up again on the sea. They were very good crew aboard the boat with great knowledge of sailing. I enjoyed their company and hope to see them again.

Off and ready to head west towards Colon Panama to get our transit date, we set sail for the Rosario´s again for a few days to relax before our beam reach back to Panama.

Once in the anchorage in the Rosario´s we met some other cruisers and one of them had run out of water. we offered water since we carry a water maker aboard Elysium. while filling Don´s tank the water maker stalled and , now we are without a water maker..I worked on the water maker for a whole day, with no success of making it work. I decided that we should get going and get to Colon and have a tech. look at the unit.