Photo: The ship Breath passes by her "little sister," Woodwind.

The small plane banked toward Mount Sage, the top of Tortola’s world. Our captain steered through the sloppy remains of Tropical Storm Noel, bumped us toward Beef Island, announcing our arrival to the British Virgin Islands. As the plane approached the airstrip, I could see the yachts in Trellis Bay. Woodwind bobbed among them, looking spectacularly bright after her two week rejuvenation project in the boatyard.

Bruce met me outside the security gates and we carried my bags one block to the beach and our dinghy, to go “back to the ship.” Flying to the Caribbean from Washington State is a strung-out day of patience and anticipation, and not particularly pleasant. But compared to the way we clawed our way here last year, flying is a piece of cake.

A day or so later we were off and running, downwind to the USVI. White-canvassed charter boats crisscrossed our path, destined for their new day’s anchorage. We eased the mainsail to clear Privateer Point on the east end of St. John for the last stretch to Coral Bay. Just then, a familiar sail configuration appeared ahead of us: red foresails, white gaffed main and mizzen. “It’s Breath!” Bruce shouted. “Excellent!”

Breath is a 42-foot big-sister ship of Woodwind. Her owners, Peter and Dorothy Muilenburg, are part of our sea-going family. And there she was, suddenly sailing back into our world. They strategically laid several tacks upwind to pass close by and we all waved, shouted and photographed away our eight years of separation. After they passed, we reminisced about the times we’d sailed beside and on Breath, but best of all, the many late nights we languished in that cockpit with Peter, the teller of tales.

Breath was built on the beach in Round Bay in the early 80s by the Muilenburgs and launched by hundreds of friends and a bulldozer, all to carry this amazing couple and their two young sons on ocean-going adventures. Twice to the Med and Africa, several trips to the U.S. East Coast, back and forth with the seasons to South America. They sailed her to Haiti on missions of humanity, to Cuba for curiosity and nearly lost her once when they sailed onto a Bahamian reef. Fortunately, though, Breath lives on and so do the stories collected along the way.

Anyone lucky enough to find him- or herself in Peter’s audience might feel a twitch or two of doubt when hearing some of those stories. For instance, what were the chances the Muilenburgs would be reunited with their personality-plagued Schipperke, Santos, after he fell overboard five miles off the Venezuelan coast? And when Breath was wrestled out of their control by the fierce current of Africa’s Gambia River, colliding with electric wires that shot dancing flames to the deck and down below, how was it they eventually found the friend, the son and the dog that were sent into the sea?

Those stories and dozens more, as true as the teller himself, were recorded and appeared in Sail Magazine, Islands, Reader’s Digest and a handfull of other publications. The cream of that crop now reside together in Peter’s book, "Adrift on a Sea of Blue Light." Reading it was a wonderful interruption of life, as once I dove in I couldn’t climb out. The end of one adventure pulled me into the next, and what didn’t cause me to marvel, to wonder, to laugh … made me cry. It’s a book I’ll read again very soon.

St. John visitors can join Breath and her crew as part of a day-sail, a sunset cruise or any special event, including a shipboard wedding. To learn more about Breath’s history or to arrange a charter go to sailbreath.com.

Jan