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Morning Intermediate Desert Drive - From red bowls to white crests: Sweihan to Al Faya - Abu Dhabi - 15 Oct 2021


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Dear Desert Wanderers, 

this RSVP is now closed.

Please find below the convoy order for our drive:

image.png.3e4f5992b214a5491f54f0d8ea10dbc7.png

@Mario Cornejo, @Rawad, @Alain Canivet-Abikhalil, @JeromeFJ, @Chinthaka Ruwan, @Arman, @Ranjan Das, @Russ, @Shaaz Sha, this drive is going to be thrilling and exciting, going across a terrain that will be new to almost all of the drivers, beautiful and majestic, but very challenging from a technical point of view, with tricky soft sand everywhere. The drive will be very demanding, both mentally for the drivers and mechanically for the cars. It will require your full and undivided concentration at every step, especially when we will reach elevated positions on steep slopes, so make sure you come well rested and hydrated and that and you don’t have any reason for being distracted. Also, please consider carefully if you wish to bring passengers along with you. As far as your vehicle is concerned, please make sure that you have checked its perfect conditions (tow points, tires, fluids levels) as we are supposed to cover over 80km tomorrow.

We will be using Carnity Channel 4 (446.08125Mhz).

Our meeting point is confirmed as per drive post: https://goo.gl/maps/Mf11NJccmLJrgbEv5 . For those who are new to Sweihan, once you exit the E16, you will have to cross a gate, that automatically opens when you approach it. 

Please make sure you come with a FULL TANK.

The nearest petrol station coming from Dubai / Abu Dhabi is here: https://goo.gl/maps/N9dL153xVhABBqJt6
The nearest petrol station coming from Al Ain is here: https://goo.gl/maps/BUrnVktkLWvaVDbs7  

See you tomorrow morning, ready to go (i.e. already caffeinated, deflated, flagged and briefed) by no later than 6:00am (sharp), so make sure you make it to the meeting point at least by 5:45am. 

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@Lorenzo Candelpergher thank you for the teaser and presentation of the drive. It's going to be exciting !!

Can you just check the link to meeting point. there is a dot at the end making the link invalid in the post above. The link on top of the drive post is correct

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Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergher really looking forward to this!

Just one small correction to your post, as @Srikumar correctly identified when we were there a couple of weeks ago, the gate will in fact only open if you shout the word ‘ABRACADABRA’ at high volume upon approaching..

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Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher for the drive this morning, whilst it was unfortunate that events conspired against us so all 3 parts of the drive couldn’t be completed, I hope this means we will be able to return to the area again soon!

This was totally different to the Sweihan drive I did recently, which just goes to show how vast the area is..

Thanks to those who supported and @Shaz Shah I hope you manage to sort your car out soon (after you have located it!)

See you all soon 🌵

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Thank you for the drive this morning @Lorenzo Candelpergher
A beautiful itinerary with huge possibilities, and almost no tracks at all. The only convoys in sight were camels ! It is a gem! Definitely worth returning and exploring further. The landscape was superb and we could enjoy even if the pace of the drive was requiring  a continuous concentration .

thank you all for the support and company, @Shaaz Sha, I hope you can recover you car without too much troubles.

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16 hours ago, JeromeFJ said:

Thank you for the drive this morning @Lorenzo Candelpergher
A beautiful itinerary with huge possibilities, and almost no tracks at all. The only convoys in sight were camels ! It is a gem! Definitely worth returning and exploring further. The landscape was superb and we could enjoy even if the pace of the drive was requiring  a continuous concentration .

thank you all for the support and company, @Shaaz Sha, I hope you can recover you car without too much troubles.

@Shaaz Sha's car was recovered yesterday. 

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18 hours ago, Russ said:

Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher for the drive this morning, whilst it was unfortunate that events conspired against us so all 3 parts of the drive couldn’t be completed, I hope this means we will be able to return to the area again soon!

This was totally different to the Sweihan drive I did recently, which just goes to show how vast the area is..

Thanks to those who supported and @Shaz Shah I hope you manage to sort your car out soon (after you have located it!)

See you all soon 🌵

We located the car around 2.30 hours after entering the desert in Pitch dark. A mom camel and her 2 kids actually helped us. Once we saw the herd 3 times while following the map we understood then the car is nearby. Fixed the car and exited. The 3rd part of the drive was at night. The dunes looked very tall and menancing at night. 

Edited by Thomas Varghese
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We had gone for recovering @Shaaz Sha's car from deep inside the desert in Sweihan yesterday. After the Newbie drive with @Kailas I got news that @Shaaz Sha car had to be abandoned inside the desert in Sweihan as its upper arm link broke during his drive with @Lorenzo Candelpergher. There was no way the car could be recovered by tugging it out as the wheel had come out. 1st the drive from Ajman to sweihan to join for my drive with Kailas. Then picking up Shaaz who was taken care of by Lorenzo and driving all the way back to Ajman to source the parts and a mechanic. Once parts and mechanic was sorted out taking all this back to Sweihan to locate the car inside the desert. All experienced personnel in Carnity was engaged in the winter drive opening session. As the mechanic cannot come with us today we had no choice but enter sweihan desert by ourselves in 2 cars and start to locate where the car was left and that too after 8.30pm as we reached the entry point around that time. We roamed around 2 hours inside the desert in pitch blackness and finally located the car by 11pm. Half an hour later the car was fixed and ready for action. 2 cars became a 3 car convoy and had to figure a way out to the exit in pitch blackness and surrounded by big dunes. Another 3 hours roaming inside like lost orphans until finally we reached tarmac around 1.30 am. Reinflated tires and drove back home to Ajman dead tired. Reached home around 3am. 

By the way @Shaaz Sha would have done the same for me if it was my car in that situation. He has done that before in Iftar bowl when my car had to be left there after my differential broke down. We exited the desert only at 2am after recovering my car and he had missed his next day drive same like I missed mine today. So no regrets. 

My thanks to all the marshals @Carnity who has trained us well to achieve this kind of feat in such a short time. Never expected we could enter and exit inside Sweihan like this in pitch darkness. Special thanks to @Rahimdad, @Frederic, @Gaurav, @Wrangeld, @Chaitanya D, @Lorenzo Candelpergher@Jeepie, @Tbone, @Srikumar, @Vanessa8580, @Foxtrot Oscar, @Ale Vallecchi, @Luca Palanca Falsini@Islam Soliman and all other marshals I have driven with. All the knowledge given to us during the drives were put to use for this recovery. After this I felt like I'm a superman. 😀

Not a story but real action. 

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Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher for the wonderful drive. It was a challenging and eventful drive. Different terrain compared to my previous drives. Wish to go there again.  @Shaaz Sha happy to hear that your X is fixed and recovered.   Also a big thank to @Thomas Varghese. Excellent work. 
Some pictures are in gallery. See you all soon. Have a great week. 

DSC03281-min.JPG

DSC03310-min.JPG

DSC03276-min.JPG

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