The sky is beautiful but weak, the wind is lower than 60 km/h. The Vz netto is particularly disappointing. The wave bars of Sc seem to evaporate in direction of the turn point (see photo satellite fig. 18 at 12h45 with our position), the Vz are in the range 1-1,5 m/s and are not sufficient to allow maintaining the altitude at an acceptable ground speed.  After 250 km of uncertain surfing, at 13h24 UTC, we are forced to stop for 20 minutes between 4.000m to 6.000m to refuel in a small 1,6 m/s average. I didn’t want to descend below the bases of the Sc, This territory is the most absolute unknown to us, looking like Mars. Our route strategy now starts to pay: We had chosen to remain more south of the  route in order to be able to escape taking advantage of the tail wind in case of difficulty. And it works well, we climb up to 7.300 m in the last materialized rebound before the turn point, the maximum allowed by Comodoro ATC, with an average of only 2 m/s. If that is America, we are not at the end of our pains…

Departure full tail wind until the turn point, at 300 km/h ground speed, 8 min for 41 km, at 150 km/h IAS, giving a L/D of 135. The flight average speed is around 110 km/h, we are not on time for the speed record, but the distance record can still be tried. In any case, given the circumstances that provoked this attempt, the word “renouncement” will never cross our mind. My heart missed a beat when throwing a last glance to the blue line materializing the Atlantic ocean at Trelew’s bay. This is  the city where the conclusive tragedy of “Vol de Nuit [Night flight]“, by Saint-Exupéry, took place. Fortunately, the conditions are distinctly better than those of the book, the bars of Sc  merged together with the lenticulars, generating kinds of mushrooms having their bases toward 3.000m and their summits between 6.000 and 7.000m (Photo 19). But a glance to the compass makes me understand that it won’t be for us, they are situated very south of our route and it is necessary for us to reroute to the west to come back on track and, as for the first branch, to reserve us a possibility of escaping eastward with tail wind in case of difficulty. The west is indeed very closed, we see only solid white clouds below us.