Morning Fewbie Plus Desert Drive - Planet Arrakis P.2: The Way of the Spice (Nahil Lake to "Africa" Sweihan) - Abu Dhabi - 19 Jan 2025

[Cesar Chacon]

Good Morning Ale, happy New Year.

yes, I’m ok

[Ale Vallecchi]

Dear Desertnauts

"A Spice harvester (also called a “crawler”) is a large, heavy, mobile factory designed to harvest Melange. It is dropped by carrier ships (known as carryalls) onto Spice fields. These machines would then harvest and process the Spice from the sand of the desert floor. This immense farming mechanism are used solely on Arrakis, as it is the only known source of Spice before the Tleilaxu developed a substitute."

Hence, in the second installment of the Planet Arrakis drives, we'll immediately go in search of the Spice Fields, which we'll encounter, with their typical circle shape, a few minute into the drive. After reaching this, as essentially our starting point. we'll double back toward our two other waypoints: Ghaf Bowl, and Nagrah Dune. We'll stop at each and refresh ourselves. The final segment of the drive will take us toward the Sheik Khalifa Houbara breeding center, the big farm fenced in to look like an angular shape of Africa.

It should be another medium to long-range drive, hence we'll spend more time finding the best lines to navigate, and less looking for playgrounds, granted the fact that the terrain will provide plenty of challenges and variety.

The convoy order will be, once again, designed to provide a mini tutorial, with each Fewbie Plus being "guided" by a higher rank member, and all our Support Team members evenly spread throughout the convoy, to make sure all goes well throughout the drive:

@Benje_Junior in Second Lead

@Giacomo at #3

@nithish468 at #4

@Cesar Chacon at #5

@Bjoern at #6 and Center Forward

@Jessica Lambert at #7

@ChrisW at #8

@Nizar Shawwa at #9

@Glenn W at #10

@Senthil Kumar at #11 and Center Back

@Aser at #12

@Hani crest king at #13 and 

@Luke K P in Sweep

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow with the goal of being ready to go at a comfortable 8:30 AM.

Have a good Saturday evening.

[_luke_]

Thanks for fun drive today everyone! 

We started heading into the big dunes of nahel in search of spice and passing the large nahel lake.

Lots of flowing dunes and fast driving before heading back towards the Pacman Zone and trying to thread the needle between fences and farms to the south.

After some fast sabhka crossings and passing the burnt out FJ, we visited the ghafatein bowl and enjoyed some loops.

Next we made our way over to naghra where @Ale Vallecchi was constantly being harassed by fremen insurgents (quad car things) stopping us from harvesting spice and hitting all the climbs together.

@Benje_Junior took over to lead the last quarter, revisiting some bowls from an early intermediate drive he did (if I heard properly over the radio 😅). I'd never been to this area before and enjoyed the long ridge rides and climbs!

My stats say we averaged nearly 30kph... Pretty fast over a lot of different terrain!

Nice fun Sunday! See you next time 

It's lucky we exited when we did..my car was saying 16km of fuel remaining even tho I started with a full tank😅

Jerry can in the backgot me to the next adnoc, but was looking close there for a while 😂😂

Edited January 19, 2025 by Luke K P

[ChrisW]

Thanks @Ale Vallecchi and all - that was a really fun drive today. A nice mix of terrains and sands, with some good climbs and a very fresh area at the back end of the drive to practice some more technical skills on clean sands. 
 

Extra bonus points as I got to use my winch, and use 4Lo + Lockers…with some great advice from @Bjoern on how to anchor the car when winching in the future. Great stuff!

[ChrisW]

PS If anyone has any pics/video of the winching and my car sunk into the sand, would be most grateful if you can share!

[Cesar Chacon]

Amazing drive in all aspects , leading, support and the whole convoy flow.

I have attached 1 picture, Luke in action 

 

[Cesar Chacon]

A few more picture 

[_luke_]

1 hour ago, Cesar Chacon said:

Amazing drive in all aspects , leading, support and the whole convoy flow.

I have attached 1 picture, Luke in action 

 

I chopped up that poor plant for no reason! 😅

[Jessica Lambert]

My heart rate has only just returned to normal 😅 Phenomenal drive. Thank you one and all.

[Hani crest king]

What a phenomenal drive we had in Sunday, @Ale Vallecchi always having us on great routes backed with narratives and knowledge along the way. From the Ghaf bowl, bumping into freddie’s convoy with their pop out and through Naghra play area where a lot of knowledge has been shared. @Luke K P as usual great support from every angle of the convoy and equipped with anything and everything we need and don’t need cuz why not. @Benje_Junior great lead at the last part some good car endurance and fun testing. 
Pictures uploaded in the gallery tab

On 1/19/2025 at 6:19 PM, ChrisW said:

PS If anyone has any pics/video of the winching and my car sunk into the sand, would be most grateful if you can share!