5am, Dominique circulates between the tents and wakes us up with his legendary "Hello, it's 5am!"

But waking up is hard this morning, the night wasn't very good... the tent canvas doesn't really have any insulating power and especially not for noise. Neither the comings and goings nor the wind are dimmed....the latter will have lasted all night, without weakening, crumpling the tent and hiding it against our heads. I would finally find sleep very late, well hidden in my duvet.

But whatever, here we are, and we've had far worse nights before.

Vero is already ready, she goes to place the 4x4 on the starting line: line F, again, we succeeded yesterday!

Once ready for my turn, I go with my equipment under the big tent. Out of the question to miss a crumb of the 6am briefing!

This ritual will be the same every morning of the 6 stages.

Each one finds its place with ease and fluidity and we are already making a strategic decision: Nejjack being our bivouac until stage 4, we will leave our tent and our belongings in place and sleep in the vehicle with emergency duvets if necessary. We will save precious time.

Hardly had we eaten breakfast than it was time for the briefing: a stage of some 113km awaits us today with 7 beacons to reach.

No great navigation difficulties but great distances to cover, 21.6 km for the longest (between CP2 and CP3), many cultures to avoid too.

It is here that I discover for the first time the dunes of Merzouga. Huge, majestic and captivating, they stand proud and serene in our landscape. A thought then crosses my mind: "in 2 days we will be there, they are so high! I'm afraid". I quickly sweep away this thought to concentrate on my nav' to guide Vero as well as possible.

The beacons are linked and today again, we will reach them all. It is therefore time to return to the bivouac, to the CAP of course, because the race is on and all the kilometers count.

Yes, but that was without counting on camel grass! There, just a few kilometers from the bivouac, those of the prologues. You remember? But if!? The ones we had bypassed. And yes! Traitors! I had forgotten them!

"Véro! I know where we are, and it's not good!!!" ...Too late, we can no longer turn around, we must move forward. It won't take long for us to be tanked (silted up to the chassis).It's the first time, the biggest too! Several vehicles pass, get stuck in the sand, too, but no one to help us.

Too bad, out of the question to give up and sleep outside tonight, we'll be back! So I pass in front, on foot, to guide Vero and after about 2 km we finally find a ground without obstacles.

We will reach the line around 9:30 p.m. after more than 3:30 a.m. but in the end with only a 12.24 km penalty.

Once the vehicle is in parc fermé and the stage validated, quickly quickly, a shower, a meal and bedtime because tomorrow, everything starts again!

Stage classification : 18th, 12.24 km from Penalties