X-atacama: 26. October 2014 - San Marcos >> Cuya

Like yesterday I can go with the bus of the competition to their take off - this time it is San Marcos. The day starts nicely and promising, so do I and start out into my private race. Soon after my start the race committee propones the start of the task and the pilots follow me towards Iquique. As I fly on such a capable glider i do not care a lot about the altitude in front of Cementario Uno and just fly on, as I am quite sure, the glider will low save me. But as a saying goes : pride comes before the fall … I get grounded on the very typical corner and …. ( no words ) …. As I am on the ground the leading group of the comp arrives and they all have the same problem like me, but as they arrive about 20 - 30 meters higher, they are able to escape the trap with a lot of scratching fight, but they do. Seeing this I climb up by feet some meters and do the rest in ground handling style and as soon as I cannot hold the glider any more I turn around and am airborne again. Full of anger about myself I am kind of new motivated now, pass Iquique, overfly lands end, 70 km later the peninsula of Pisaqua, the Tiliviche Canyon, Calheta Chica and its chocolate dunes and for the first time ever, even the valley of Camarones. As the condensate into the Camarones valley does look very compact and friendly I fly on towards Cuya. Every some kms I turn around to make sure that I can still fly against the valley wind. Having overflown the police check point of Cuya I decide to fly into the southern arm of the valley, as the valley is dividing there. From here on I do my turn arounds and trying to fly back against the valley wind more often. Soon I face, that the flight back is only possible with speed bar in half to fully accelerated position. So I turn around and try to reach Cuya again, but have to land just on my side of Cuya. Before reaching the ground I disconnect myself from the harness and catch the blowing away glider on outer lines. If I would not have been on the ground in Cementario Uno it would have been a longer than 230 km flight, but so they are two flights, one of 58 km and one of 174 km.