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Evening/Night Fewbie Desert Drive - South Qudra to Last Exit - Dubai - 18 Jun 2022


Kailas

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Thanks everyone for the great drive.

@Kailas thanks for the criss cross  drill and creating the route.

Special thanks for a personal shoveling exercise for me before the  exit 🤣.

Edited by Andrei S
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While it started as a normal night drive, everyone was driving quite effortlessly, in the end it turned out to be anything but an effortless drive.

The drive was ending and just one more dune to go - after which @Kailas planned another break near Richi's Bar and call it a night.  @Yerem Davtyan at number 3 followed the previous two cars into a bowl but had to stop as there was a slight rerouting on other side of the bowl and then his car won't come out of it. I was driving behind him and had an intuition that he might have a refusal and waited safely on top of that bowl. After repeated attempts to come out of it - we were sure he needed a winch as there was no place to tug him. In an effort to place myself in a position to winch him out, I started to move but due to the extremely soft sand - I managed to put myself in the bowl as well. I knew I was going to slip into the bowl if I tried to move and asked him to keep his car a bit up the bowl so that even if I slip, I will still be able to come out of it.

I was foolishly confident that I would loop out of it, so did not take precautions to ensure that I should not have slipped into that bowl. But it did not go as I thought it will, and I slipped into the bowl. I tried to come out and could come out 3/4th of the way but still inside. We then we placed @Pacific's car on top, tethered behind for safety and I winched me out of it. While winching I had an epiphany on the RPMs:

"2000 is for driving and 1500 for recovery"

At 1500 rpm I was able to maintain traction and even move from difficult positions, and when it went to 2000, I was losing everything - traction and sand under my car and digging myself in the process. With this lesson learnt in practical, I now knew how to drive, and I was able to position myself where I wanted to do at first and move from exactly the same position from where I got myself into the bowl to begin with. Then it was a quick pull for the old Tahoe, and we were out an hour late.

Retrospectively, if I were to find myself in the same position now, I would avoid going into the bowl at all costs, having learnt that it was foolish even to assume that I could loop out of it. Desert is unpredictable and will not condon mistakes stemming out of over confidence. 

Edited by Looper
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don't drive like its your last one.

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Thanks @Kailas - that was another fun evening drive with an unpredicted ending. Lots of excellent cooperation and ingenuity to rescue the cars from the bowl at the end (at least I am assuming they aren't still there), and to reroute the rest of us through a very tricky exit.

@Rajiv Sam - I can't believe I didn't give you anything to do. There is always next time :)

Andrew

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