I've become a weather girl.

My parents, Peter and Wendy (yes, like Peter Pan. No he can't fly, but sometimes he thinks he can) are currently sailing off the east cost of the United States. Yeah, the Atlantic, in November. They started in Saint John, and their goal is The Bahamas.

Because most marinas along the Jersey Shore shut down this time of year, along with their WiFi (only Canadians and career fishermen consider -5°C to be sailing weather), they have found it difficult to get a detailed, on-demand weather forecast. So, every night for the last week or so I've gotten a call (gotta love cell phones) to google and give a report on the marine weather for the next day. At least if they're lost at sea, I'll be the first to know they're missing.

I don't consider myself much of a sailor. I have spent some time on the boat my parents are now living on, but would not be comfortable taking it out without someone more experienced than me on board. I was in the Navy for a brief time, but life on a frigate as an engineer in training is less like 'sailing' and more like 'prison'. However,  I will give you a summary of Peter and Wendy's adventure as I see it:

Peter's experience:

Image from:  http://memerial.net

Wendy's experience:

Image from: www.sodahead.com

When one plans to sail to The Bahamas, it's kind of like this...

What your friends think you're doing:

Images from: www.thejumpingfrog.com; www.myoutislands.com; http://miriadna.com

What you think you're doing:

Images from: www.wallpaperup.com; www.classic-sailing.co.uk; www.screensavergift.com

What you are actually doing:

If  sailing is your thing, you can see the video log of Peter and Wendy's first leg of the journey here or here. It is from these videos that I stole the above images of reality. And I'm sure more videos will be forth coming once they get home from (assuming they survive) leg number two. It might take a while because teaching baby-boomer parents to blog is a bit like this:

Image from: Somewhere on Pinterest

Don't worry, Mom and Peter, we can go over it again at Christmas ;-) Love you.