It is a couple of weeks early, but we are having such nice weather here in Ventura (although we really need more rain), that I decided to break the Weta out of hibernation and go for my first sail since early November. I launched from Channel Islands Harbor, 5 miles southeast of my home port of Ventura Harbor, because I wanted to mark the CIH entrance and oil platform Gina on my GPS. I left the ramp, deep in the harbor, at about 1 p.m. and made my way out to the ocean. It was perfect Weta weather. The seas were only about 1' - 2', and the wind was blowing strong enough that one could sit on the ama, lean back into the harness and freight along upwind without ever getting overpowered and need to uncleat the mainsheet. Would that be about 15 knots of wind? Maybe slightly more? The wind was a bit more north of west than it usually is so I was able to lay Gina, 3.3 miles offshore, on starboard without tacking. I was stoked because in 25 minutes I had accomplished my mission and gotten two new valuable waypoints in my GPS. To continue enjoying the perfect conditions I tacked on to port and headed up the coast to Ventura Harbor hoping to see my friend on his maiden voyage of his, new to him, Prindle 19. Usually it would be a reach, but because of the slightly unusual wind direction, close hauled, I was headed into the beach at about the half way point. But, as often happens, as I got closer into the beach, I got lifted and was actually able to lay the harbor entrance. So far, this had been a perfect sail. I entered the harbor, but didn't see my friends, so, because the 54 degree water was starting to give me a bit of a chill, I headed on back to CIH. I found out later, that as I was leaving the harbor my friends were coming back in and yelled at me to get my attention, but I didn't hear them. It is a nice, very fun reach back to CIH, but I only two sailed reached for awhile to get a bit offshore before unfurling the gennaker. I came to find out that the bow actually dives down more without the gennaker deployed to pull the bow up. It was typical Weta blast reaching but I often buried both the main hull and the leeward ama as I plunged down a swell and into the next one ahead of it and was too slow pulling the tiller up towards me. Sadly, after doing this for awhile, I noticed that my GPS had been swept away from it's holder on the inspection port cap in front of the daggerboard. Damn! My mission was unaccomplished and my GPS was gone. This had just become a $200 daysail! But I was having so much fun that I just unfurled the gennaker and took off for 3 more miles of exciting sailing back to CIH. This is when I came to realize that it was actually safer to 3 sail reach. Either that or my timing heading down in the puffs had gotten better. Or both. By the time I sailed into the harbor I was shivering but the exciting sail I just had warmed my soul. I have no idea what my average or max speed was. I do know that I got a fantastic fix of Weta sailing. My next mission is to search the web to replace my GPS. And yeah, it was an expensive sail, but, it actually was worth it. I hope not to spend $200 every time I have a perfect daysail, but I can shrug this one off.