Morning Fewbie Desert Drive - Mahafiz to Faya - Sharjah - 12 Nov 2021

[Luca Bregni]

On 11/13/2021 at 7:41 PM, Mehmet Volga said:

@Alexander Holodny @Damien Ranjit @Daniel Rodas @Mohamad Anwer @Luca Bregni @bassel el rafei @Alexanderrr @Alexanderrr @Paul Zeitoun @Pacific Thank you all for joining our drive yesterday! Great day again to start a lovely weekend.

We started right on time and kept a joyful line with stops on big play stations. Rarely used ropes and shovels in a couple of occasions so we had enough time to test our offroading skills, make repeated attempts with trying different methods and tricks and get more familiar with the attitudes of our cars. We tried for better performance by discussing and practicing on timing to push, switching to right gears, keeping right tracks and cheating where required 😎

Excellent lead by @Hisham Masaad ; he took the convoy to all famous bowls and dunes of Mahafiz and we did many practices while getting a great fun on those. Thank you my friend and welcome to the leadersboard! Looking forward to support your upcoming independent drives!

Flawless center support by @Paul Zeitoun and sweep by @Pacific ; you saved our day with excellent recoveries and advises so we had our time to enjoy playing. Recovery from the bush; wise move buddies! First time I watched such trimming by using a car and a rope. Experience recorded for the impossible recoveries in the future. Very well done!

@Alexander Holodny @Damien Ranjit @Daniel Rodas @Mohamad Anwer @Luca Bregni @bassel el rafei @Alexanderrr; it was really nice to see that you are now fully familiar with your cars and have well control in different offroad acts. Each of you demonstrated very good performance. Well done strong fewbies! 💪

@Alexanderrr did a great start to his fewbie adventure. Excellent performance! Keep it up and enjoy. 👍

* A footnote about our "bush operation";

It was a really smart solution by Paul and Pacific. They recovered the car from a very difficult position without damaging it. Well done!

However, when I shared this experience with the Carnity leads and advisors, screams came out! ... dreadful... terrible ... vandals ... how dare you do that ... you killed the environment ... Although we didn't kill any plant, it was still nice for me to hear such harsh criticism as it proves how great people our club has, with full of love and sensitiveness to the environment and nature. 

In this occasion, I think it is good to underline some points here to keep in our minds during offroading;

As you all know, we are doing this hobby right in the lap of the Mother Nature. Thanks to wonderful nature and environment we have in the desert, we treat all our stress and bad feelings we accumulated during the whole week and get full of peace and energy to continue for the next! I think that is the reason many of us are doing this every week.

But the desert is not ours; it belongs to animals, plants, rocks, sands, ... living and non-living landlords welcoming us for a couple of hours per week. As known, day by day we are losing wonderful terrains in the dessert due to new facilities occupying the nature for construction, energy, tourism, ... it is becoming more challenging to find good zones as time goes by. Therefore, the environment must have the first priority for our club as it is not possible to feed our passion without it. There is not too many, so we have to preserve the ones we have on hand.

I believe that every member in our club has the same emotionality to respect the nature and environment and no one would never ever think of harming any living creature breathing in the desert.

In order to do the right, I think we can list a brief guide here to consider for similar recoveries in the future;

1. We should think about touching the plants only if there is no any other option. In our case, it was the last option as tugging or winching the car from the front was not possible in that inclined bowl. So ticked...
2. Our bush was completely dry and dead already. So it was very easy to trim it out. But in the future, there may be some living plants blocking the way out in a similar event. Also, sometimes it may not be possible to know whether it is dead or alive, as the plants stays dry until suitable conditions come, and revive again. For such those, you can apply the same method as Paul and Pacific did, to cluster the branches together with a tugging rope (like hair tying) or gently bend it to one side. By doing so, you can make the plant volume smaller and open the way out without harming it.
3. If tying is not enough to open a way, you can consider to trim some branches with shovels or knives to have more space. Pruning the plant doesn't kill it as its roots are still there and it can shoot forth new branches. In our case, we trimmed the upper part but its roots remained underground, meaning that it could be revived back if not dead completely. So in the future, you should deal with the upper branches of plants but shouldn't harm its roots (... it wouldn't be that much easy to pull a living root out already... also not necessary)

I think these above can give a quick guide in your possible dealings with the plants for similar recoveries in the future.

Happy to have environmentally sound club members, none of us allow any vandalism to the nature in our drives. As an engineer working in the environmental sector, I exactly know that real vandals are generally wearing suits and managing big companies destroying the environment with legally approved projects.  Not easy to fight with, but we have to...

See you all on the next!

Thanks @Mehmet Volga for you explanation, I totally agree and confirm that unfortunately there was no other option. On the other hand I was really surprised how the bush got easily trimmed. That surely means that it was completely dry. Thanks for your background lad, it has been a pleasure to meet you in the desert. 

 

[Luca Bregni]

On 11/14/2021 at 7:02 AM, Hisham Masaad said:

Good morning, just had time since we left the desert Friday, to go through and type. First of all would like to thank you @Mehmet Volgafor giving me the opportunity to lead the drive, take our friends through the desert, trying to find a track which we enjoy and test our capabilities as drivers and our cars performances. i personally enjoyed it, and hope all of participants has the same.

@Alexanderrryou were amazing going through your first FB drive, and look forward to see you again.

 @Alexander Holodny@Damien Ranjit @Daniel Rodas @Mohamad Anwer @Luca Bregni you were amazing, no issues all the way through. Except the cheating incident 😅

@bassel el rafei pleasure meeting you for the first time, other than few refusals and re attempts, you've done a very good job, specially after 6 months, and welcome back to the desert.

@Paul Zeitoun and @Pacific thank you very much for looking after us in the back and centre. Your guidance was really good for every one. @Pacific I am not sure about comments kept hearing from @Mehmet Volga about your car and drive, but looks they are invalid, since nothing mentioned in the above drive report above 😉 

Re the bush operation, you have left nothing @Mehmet Volgato say. From day one joining @Carnity, and while driving with all leads, it was always the comment whenever we see any animal, the comments were always "careful, dont come close, dont scare and so on"... While driving, we always take our track between small bushes, yes to avoid jumping and bumping, but to avoid going over a small creature and cause any damage as well. Thank you for the brief you have put Mehmet, and it is a good guide for all of us to follow in such cases.

Great meeting and wish all the best, see you soon in sand

Thank you @Hisham Masaad for you lead. I really enjoyed the path with all the technical passages and professional approach, also appreciated the tip to deflate again the tyres when I started to lose traction on the sand. Hope to meet you again on the sand