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There were thick cu's this Monday morning. Gary took this shot at 6:45 AM:

The thick (lots of vertical development) street persisted through most of the
morning which encouraged BJ Herring to launch his ATOS (after flying for seven
hours and 270 miles on Sunday) at around 9:30 AM. Robin Hamilton in his Swift
was quickly behind him.

The rest of us waited a bit for the cloud base to rise from 1,800' AGL, which it
did quickly. Mikey was off around 10:30 and I was after him at 10:45, assuming
that I would find at 3,000' cloud base. Russell pulled me way to the east and I
headed for a cloud street where after a thorough search found 600 fpm around 11
AM. Unlike on Sunday I wasn't settling for weak lift but searching around for
the best of the lift and got a great reward.

The streets were gapped and thinning out quickly but in no time I was
approaching San Ignacio road. Trying to get there high I jumped to the street to
the west, pushed upwind when the cloud looked to be improving in that direction
and again found much better lift under the developing cloud which got me over
into the next stretch of locked gates at 4,000'.

The sky was getting even bluer, and I was concerned. My street was drying out,
there were lots of locked gates below, so after working some dying clouds I
jumped to an isolated cloud back to the east, found strong lift again until the
cloud began to die. There was a bit more of a street to the east so I jumped
again and as I approached the cloud found 100 fpm in the blue.

I kept flying straight in the lift going to get under the cloud to find the best
lift, but in this case it was a mistake. No lift under the dark cloud.

I headed northeast to what looked like a newly forming cloud, but it quickly
died and all I found was 700 fpm to the ground east of Magana Heines road,
twenty miles from Zapata on the Rancho Nuevo San Antonio. I was in contact with
Belinda who was west of me on highway 83 through Mikey, so I just packed up my
harness and waited. I left the glider up minus its battens to give me shade.

I had been attacked (stealthily) two days previously by
chiggers as I lay under the bushes to keep out of the sun and didn't want to
repeat that incident. I lay down under the glider and got some sleep to keep
myself from being bored waiting to get retrieved.

Fortunately the brilliant Belinda was at first able to get within .86 kilometers
of me with the truck, stopped by a deer fence, ten feet high. She was twenty
miles off the main road and on a bare two track lane on a ranch. She had dodged
locked gates and gone on a number of two track paths to get around the gates and
found herself almost to me.

I suggested that she go back and get the key for the gate from the nearby ranch
house. The workers there were happy to give it to her. They had seen me land.
She then drove right up to me.

BJ Herring went down 140 miles out at La Pryor on highway 83. Robin put it down
north of Camp Wood on highway 55, 200 miles out and just before the Edwards
Plateau. There haven't been cu's past Uvalde since we got here this year,
despite the wonderful launch conditions down here in Zapata. Flight after flight
has been cut short at the hill country because of the lack of street. And that
is what Robin and BJ ran into (or out of).

Mikey landed 100 miles out near Catarina. Alex didn't fly today after going 250
miles yesterday, but Eduardo, Paolo, and Mohicano all flew and landed sixty to
seventy miles out, just past Laredo. I heard that a couple of them were sick
(food poisoning?).

It looks like east winds for a couple of days (with a low pressure going through
Mexico). We'll see what happens after that. Pete Lehmann and I are setup in the
hanger. I'm hoping for cu's all the way to Lubbock.

As BJ illustrates, despite one's best efforts, records are very hard to set and
break. Only four pilots have flown hang gliders (including one rigid wing) over
400 miles (Robin, in addition, has flown a Swift past 400 miles). There's a
reason for that.