After sleeping close to the upper end of the ridge, in the morning sun I go up to the take off, I had used 2005/07/09. I eat the rest of my second last apple and empty the rest of the second last half liter bottle of water. Now I have left one more apple and half of a liter of water, so I have to ration it, every three hours a quarter of the water, half of the apple in the first half of the day, the other half in the afternoon. But as the uprising air will kick in I will leave anyway to the north or back to the south. But it keeps on being windless at all. I never faced a situation like this on this place or elsewhere in the atacama. Usually you cannot launch a glider here between 10AM and 4PM because of heavy winds, virulent thermic gusts, a.s.o., but today … ? Now my situation is getting worse. I can risk to start and try to fly - towards Pisaqua it looks probably doable. But, if I end on the beach, I will have to go 800m of altitude back up and around 40 km to Iquique or Pisaqua. Although I think, that flying would probably work I decide to wait longer for saver flying conditions. But they do not come. I could wait another day - no second windless day like this can follow, I am sure, but I do not have enough food or water with me - how simple and easy to carry some additional apples or bottles of water, but … No arguing : I am the idiot ! So finally I decide to save the last half of the apple and the last quarter of a liter water for a night walk back to Iquique. 46 km - should be no problem - in military we did 60 km night walks with heavy backpacks, so what …
