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@Rahimdad thanks for an amazing drive but more so for all the helpful advice. Much appreciated. One thing I’ve been thinking since yesterday’s drive; the amount of trash/plastic/rubbish I’m seeing in the desert, particularly in the more popular places is really shocking. I had an idea that I think the group could consider: if on each drive we spent the time waiting on each stuck or refusal to collect and pick up some of the rubbish we could make a big difference. Or pick one spot on each drive to concentrate on as a team for 10-15 mins.

Trip Report What an amazing day. Wonderful people with so much positive energy. I reached the deflation point with everyone deflated and ready to move. So a quick briefing following the Covid19 social distancing protocol in place we were raring to head out. Unfortunately @Sara EL FANIDI had a tire issue in the early morning which meant she could not join us, thank you @Paul Zeitoun for keeping me informed. I was pleasantly surprised to reach Pink Rocks with just one refusal within an hour. We had a fun time trying to scale the play area at Pink Rocks with the Tundra TRD showing us why it is so popular in this part of the world. Everyone attempted and did amazingly well. With about 2 hours of play time left I headed across the Pink Rocks and on to the play area leading us to Big Red. This was a more challenging area for the Newbies, but everyone did so well in this area also. I did what I like best, do a lot of talking and boring people with my never ending chats. Although a bit challenging but I saw everyone with a huge smile which only motivated me to make things tougher. Amazingly everyone still kept managing the rest of the trip with a huge smile. This brought us to the Big Red where we were having so much fun climbing that I lost track of time until I was reminded by @Abu Muhammad regarding the Friday prayers. By this time we had our fill and headed out to inflate and head home with a promise to meet again on future drives. The first time I saw the top of Big Red with pockets and dibbits. Very strange. @Nitin Mohan was my second lead, and as your Prado belongs to me now, drive it like you stole it. I don't know if you were tired, and you did tell me you were scared to push your car, but I noticed you did push your car but at wrong time. If you try to push the accelerator when you're stuck you will make things worse. Hope you find the ultimate control on your throttle to drive more smoothly. @Satish Mungse my smiling surprise for the day. Whenever I turned around I caught you with a smile. I really like your throttle and steering control and loved the way you handled the entire drive. Your enthusiasm and positive energy throughout your drive is more than welcome on any of my drives. @Jasim Khumi you're mighty young with surprisingly good appetite for information. The few moments I had a chat with you makes me happy to see your intelligence. The way you tackled the dunes also give me the feel that you have gelled well with your vehicle and i would advise you to keep it, as it loves you back just the way you love it. I would hate to see you part with it. @Mario Cornejo and Danny with the Y61 SWB showed me today exactly how it should be driven. Goes to show if you trust your vehicle and the vehicles knows what you need from it, then you have an unbeatable combination. @Sanjay Malik in his yacht of LC109 showed me if the driver is ready to put that thing through it paces with intelligence what can be achieved. With passengers just as enthusiastic as the driver they conquered the area we did without breaking a sweat. @Yousef Alimadadi its been a long time since we drive together. Your contribution as Centre Forward made me so proud that you were part of my team today. Also it allowed us to scale all the dunes that we managed today. @Larry Cadden your Wrangler is a beautiful machine and I like the shoes it has. Hope that deflating it further was a lesson which you'll carry forward to determine what is the best PSI for you. Although you did not struggle all that much throughout the trip, but hope reducing that 3 PSI made a world of a difference as your engine and gear box will struggle a lot less with the lower tire pressure. .@Junaid120120 your positive energy during the drive, your energy, willingness to learn and help made you a great addition to the convoy. Keep asking those all important questions, best way to learn is to ask question. The FJ is a very capable vehicle, but you need to follow the lines and ride the dunes high not to be a victim of gravity. We had a race driver today among us in the form of @Rob Harper who brings his race experience very nicely with the Tundra TRD. My first trip with the most popular vehicle in this region and he showed us exactly why people here love it so much. I believe its the driver and not the vehicle. But today was case of the driver and the vehicle combining forces which can be felt with every move. Well done and looking forward to many more drives with you. @Paul Zeitoun brings his own flavor to the drive even before its under way. Plus driving my favorite truck among the many available to us in the region. I have personally test drove 3 of them and I'm long sold on the Ram 1500 for a long time now. Not only did Paul handle the dunes well but did it in style and unmatched comfort of his Ram. His love for his truck is as evident as his trust in it and he nailed the drive as he tore his way through the area. Without @Abu Muhammad support today the drive would have been very challenging. I am very proud to see how he has developed over the drives. He is very humble, but heard enough on the radio and otherwise to make sure I know exact information required to have a very smooth drive. His help with his winch also helped us to resolve an issue which was amazingly well done. I must compliment the seniors who have given their all to make my convoy today so amazing. Goes to show how much hard work each senior gives in to every drive to churn out such capable drivers. Until next time, drive safe and catch you all next week.

@Thomas Varghese, as with every drive at each level, yesterday's drive was conceived keeping in mind the constraints which Fewbie members pose. Therefore, while we went into an area I had already visited twice, with Advance/Experts (for the recce drive) and Intermediates (for the first published drive), our drive was engineered to enter a slightly more open set of dunes, proceed at a more sedated pace, avoiding sharp dunes' ridge riding and crossing, and staying away from some trickier passages between technical dunes, as all these challenges may have led Fewbies to multiple refusals, stucks, and perhaps even more damaging consequences. Once the sign-ups were complete, I considered the skills and experience of each driver, to create the stronger and safer convoy order possible. Adding this variable - the quality of the convoy - to the equation, allows to identify the weakest links in the drive, usually represented by the members with less experience, and sometimes by the more troublesome cars, and fine-tune the drive's track and difficulty accordingly. With all of the above in mind, it ultimately all comes down to how the convoy actually behaves (less experienced drivers may face obstacles with no issue at all, or "weaker" cars can be handled expertly and pose no problems whatsoever). Our convoy behaved quite impressively (it isn't just if and how many refusals or stucks take place, but how they come about, and how much they depended upon a driver's "mistake" or the nature of the terrain), so that by the time we were getting close to Ganthoot you will have noticed that we started ridge-riding, and criss-crossing some taller dunes, at a brisk (if not fast) pace. By then, I guess it had become more of a Fewbie Plus drive. Intermediate drives, as the one we did in the past on most of yesterday's track, would be more fast paced from the beginning, cover some terrains which instead we did our best to avoid (including longer strings of bowls, or more technical areas), have more criss-crossings, even of taller and sharper dunes, and in general, be led with much less concern for the behavior of the convoy, which is almost taken for granted as able to face most obstacles, with very few refusals and almost no stucks. As for modified cars, keep in mind that in order to prepare a drive, I don't look at the mods that members have made to their car (most time I don't even know, until I reach the meeting point). At Carnity, our main goal is to bring a convoy through any given area thinking we are leading a group of stock cars (just as my own FJ). Mods are entirely up to members, and their fancy. We do not require them, we do not encourage them, and we do not conceive our drives to cater to modified cars. Felling like I may speak for all of us at Carnity, I believe mods do not make a drive easier, if the drivers does not have, or has not improved, his skills and mental approach to off-roading. Allow me to give you an example (hoping I am not giving too long an answer to an apparently easy question); @Ahab Shamaa joined the Club with a car (his FJ Extreme) which already comes with a few mods. Nonetheless, Ahab took our drives with the perfect attitude: humbly learning the necessary skills, and most of all, fine tuning his "feeling" with his car, learning how to extract its full potential, one drive at a time. He has realized, through his drives, that the modified FJ alone will not draw an impeccable side slope, sustain a long, sharp ridge-riding, or achieve a fast paced criss-crossing, unless he, as a driver, has learned how to ride his car in the best and safest manner. Your attitude seems to be the same, even with the stock Xterra, so I am confident that as your skills improve, you will be able to progress to higher ranks, regardless of the car's status (or actually, exactly because driving stock may force you to pay even more attention to your driving style and manner).

Post Drive Report It was really a drive of two parts. The drive was going well and everyone was showing the potential of themselves and their cars. We covered all of the 'basics' that need to be covered in an Absolute Newbie drive and while we did have a few people with refusals, it was a great drive and everyone was doing fantastically well. What did we cover during the drive: Basic sand driving. Convoy and radio etiquette. Dune crossing up and over. Small rainbows on the side of dunes. Slow descents on the slip face. Driving along the top part of dunes at an angle. Blip blip recoveries. LRLRLRLR steering to get traction. Use of momentum and gravity. Covering 25+ km on an Absolute Newbie drive with a large convoy is no mean feat and is a good indicator that things were going well, until they stop going well! It's part of the 4x4 game that cars will from time to time fail. As we saw yesterday there are 2 extremes. An almost new Jeep out of the showroom was having problems negaging the 4x4 through the drive and we needed to recover this a few times and then an older Jeep had a more major problem with the power steering failing, followed by the drive train and gearbox. Let's make this clear, Carnity is a 4x4 club, we try to pass on knowledge of how to drive in the sand. We are not engineeers, mechanics or for sure, we are not desert recovery experts. We do, however, think that team work is a special thing and so if one of the team is in trouble we try to help them out. If we can, we can. If we cannot we cannot. 4x4 is an extreme hobby. Things go wrong. Our objective is to get everyone in and out safely. I stress everyone, not everything. If your car cannot be safely exited, it's going to have to wait for professionals to get it out. It's the drivers' responsibility to make sure that their car is desert worthy. We make this clear in all the Carnity materials that are there for all to see. But things do happen (and I want to make it plain also that there is no suggestion that someoen came out ot the desert without having checked the vehicle in advance - the specific situation here of a belt giving up and a massive leak occusing can happen to any car experiencing the stresses of desert driving for the first time). Our message is clear, if you think to yourself that a bit of maintenance can wait, then you are putting yourself and your team mates into a situation that it simply unfair. The trip leads give up their free time to prepare and lead a drive, not to replace professionals doing thier job. So please, for your own peace of mind, make sure that your cars are desert ready before venturing out. Then next time, hopefully, we can get all the way to the planned exit point! See you soon in the sand.

After driving a lot further along the track due to having a lot of Carnity convoys starting from the same area, most of you managed to be there on time, and those who where a little late managed to get ready real quick. After a short briefing we lined up the convoy and were on our way. With a couple of new fewbies it is always a bit of a gamble to see what level of drive to start with, but as we were all doing fine, we could push a little more. I did try to find some challenges in the technical area's as well as finding place to do a little of criss crossing and ridge riding. I hope the lesson, while we were waiting during the fix of the pop out and the practicing while Rizwan adjusted his tyre pressure, meant the waiting was also enjoyable. @Arman as a second lead you did a good job, just remember to keep a bit more distance, so you won't get in trouble when I do😜 @Kailas and @Francois Germishuys you did a fantastic job with recoveries and directions to keep everyone safe. @Shehab Alawadhi glad I managed to get you stuck, @Danish Mohammad @Bernd Stucke @Rizwan Waheed @Mahmoud Asar @Mobeen Anwar @Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader @Szymon Stankiewicz a couple of refusals, self recoveries and a few stucks between us, I think you all did a great job and showed good teamwork, it was a pleasure to drive with you. See you all soon

@Ale Vallecchi another super drive led by you -thank you! Felt like we were the only drivers in the desert!! The only disappointment was not getting a chance to follow @Luca Palanca Falsini however excited for the sequel to this drive when you are ready @Islam Soliman you made me feel like I was driving 2nd lead... following the fresh new track you often created was a pleasure ... learnt a lot seeing the lines you choose! kudos for all the help throughout! @Ahab Shamaa always a pleasure being on a ride with you .. and as sweep flawless again and got to see the magic of the winch for the first time! Thank you for encouraging me to take on the ridge and keeping us all at the back well looked after! A few pics added to the gallery .. see you all at the sequel ... @Ale Vallecchiwe are 🙏🏽 For the return of your FJC (could be the title of the sequel ride)

dear @Vanessa8580 it was An mazing drive and experience, much appreciated your motivation and the chance to experience the convoy sweep. Good luck @Lorenzo Candelpergher we had fun. @Hisham Masaad nice to drive together once more and hope your son is doing great. @Vanessa8580 looking forward for the next drive.

Good effort Imran like it !!

Thanks everyone for this drive and had some good exercise !? Anyone want do join gym I recommend join Carnity club , with few recoveries everyone will build up muscles 🤩...... anyways that’s awesome drive ..... hope we have a drive more like this 😎......

Thanks for a good drive @Jeepie i got 1 blister on my left hand from all the shoveling, I really need those Dhs50’s collected for my excellent digging efforts 😎 Thanks for adding me to the drive last minute, all the new fewbies did n good job, as always with more drives their experience will improve. See you all next time.

@Alex Sidorov I have a couple of radios. I bought extra for touring & camping trips with friends. Let me know the next time you are on a drive and I can give you one. Only cost AED 80 each. Happy to give you one free or AED 80 purchase price, no problem.

DRIVE REPORT There are only a few places that could come close to LIWA, but Bu Tais is definitely one of them... We all met up on time and came across another convoy (not Carnity) at the same meeting point. They were looking for their marshal and realized a few minutes later they had to go further inside. We did a quick briefing with emphasis on not fighting gravity and keeping it safe at all times. As i mentioned before we would all have to challenge our 4x4's for several hours in this terrain, so we needed to keep a fresh head. With @Asif Hussain in my second lead, followed by the two capable Pajeros @Gaurav Soni and @Mus_hus78, we made quick progress through Bu Tais, with enough sideys to wake us up and get us on the top of our seats. The Xterra boys @Asif Hussain @Kalahari and @Rizwanm2 brought lots of power to the game, but amazing driver skils as well. @Christian Andras felt lonely in the only Toyota but he made it up by trumping us all with the massive power and it truly was a sight to see ! @Gaurav was the silver bullet in the back of the convoy: patiently waiting for his turn to make a sidey and after his attempt we knew there was little possibility to get it more spot-on After having met up at the 7 palms relatively early in the morning, i decided to launch Plan B and head out to Umm Al Oush and its famous star dunes. This involved getting through some funny technical dunes but all managed extremely well ! Once reaching the Star dunes, we were greeted with the most amazing sights, and seeing Asif bhai his smile standing on the top of the star dune made it even better. Apart from some crests and small refusals to keep us a bit active, we ventured around in these dunes with very few issues. As the clock kept ticking and i wanted to get the convoy out on the East Side of Umm Al Oush, i decided to head back, and we took the Paris Dakar dirt track that lead us back to the entry. Could i have stayed longer in this terrain ? Absolutely, but i always remind myself of the quote "Quit when you're winning" and try to follow the same. A big thanks to the support of the drive that was ALL OF YOU ! I wanted to explore this area for a long time already and thanks to you guys we were able to conquer it ! We will be bringing more of those drives this season, so get ready for some action and adrenaline ! https://www.relive.cc/view/vrqDQzYAJLv

Yes. Everyone on today's drive is ready for newbie next time out. Well done everyone.

Hi guys , believe everyone had a fantastic day offroading. For me it was my newbie drive after a long time and my first drive with @Brette since I joined carnity and again my first drive with my "X". All together it was a different experience for me to drive a different car in the sand for the first time and to be the CF for a newbie drive. Thank you @Brette @Janarthan and @Rajeevan Vickneswaranfor considering me in to your crew list and it was an educative and self evaluating drive for me. Got a chance to learn few more tips in recoveries and about the safety measures to be taken while recoveries. It was a pleasure to drive with all others in the convoy and you were all amazing today. Thank you all for superb day and hope to see you soon in the sand. Keep cool 👍

1000 Thanks @Wrangeld & @Jeepie for volunteering to lead and support this 2nd convoy and delivering a wonderful Saturday drive that will keep everyone excited for tomorrow’s 7:00pm marathon to catch a place on next weekend’s drives.. thanks everyone for driving so well and being good company .. looking forward for seeing you all soon

@Matthew Ticehurst, @Gavin Hill, @imranaasghar81, @Santhosh kumar Rajasekaran, @Natarajan, @Chris Meir, @Bala Krishnan, @kolinrrj, @Tareq Ghosheh, @Ganesan Kathirvel, @Rajendran D, @Abilash Madhavan, Evening all! I put a video together from the drive on Friday morning I hope you enjoy it! Still learning how to edit but getting there slowly!

Drive report I chose an area this week where we have a lot of very nice long range dunes and because there are some new leaders climbing up the ladder, I had the opportunity to let one of my fellow seniors @Lorenzo Candelpergher take a part of the lead. Once everyone was deflated and after a short briefing, we started moving on the track and into the dunes. I led the convoy through the first part of the dunes and everything went very smoothly. After about an hour, @bassel el rafei, who swapped his Landcruiser for a brand new 3.8 Pajero had some overheating issues and after the second time, we decided to take him back to the pylon track and let him leave the drive. I hope the car gets sorted out so you can join again soon @bassel el rafei. After the little reroute, @Lorenzo Candelpergher took over the lead and he led us back into the desert and up the long range dunes. Boy, did he have fun !! The terrain was amazing and the whole convoy did great. There were a minimum of refusals, no shoveling at all and no tugging. We could cover a lot of ground and we all had so much fun .... A little too much fun because @Hisham Masaad's son got carsick and we decided to go back to the pylon track and slowly exited the convoy out. When we were inflating the tyres, the poor boy got his color again and he felt a bit better. I think next time, @Hisham Masaad will have to come on his own, his son said he doesn't want to join anymore I especially want to thank @Melenany who was an amazing sweep and support ! I hope to see everyone back again soon in the sand

Thank you @Ale Vallecchi for the detailed description of the drive. Whatever be the classification of the drive I enjoyed it as my wife was very happy with the criss crossing, ridge riding and at the pace we were going. She was shouting with glee at the crossing and coming down the slope like she was riding a roller coaster all in the private space inside our car. To tell you the truth she was very proud of how her husband still drives at this age. Honestly I like it immensely. Who wouldn't like when your own wife is admiring you on your driving skills when you feel like you are getting old? I know its taking a physical toll on her with the jumps and I always tell her she can stay back home and I'll be back after the drive. She said she will accompany me until she feels its enough of the adventure for her. Regarding mods I'm not interested in turning my car into an offroad monster when at present I didn't even utilize the full potential of the car. I think with more drives like this I will finally realize what my car can do and what my limitations are. Some of the crossings we did yesterday demanded extreme concentration and had to overcome the fear of falling down from the top of the ridge. I'm not in my middle age. I have crossed 53 and my reflexes and eye sight is not as sharp as before even though I pretend they are as good as before. I try to overcome this by paying full attention to the task. Looking forward for more adventure drives from you and will join as soon as the calendar opens.

Yeah....learned that the hard way yesterday getting stuck on those criss crosses, only one way to improve though Thanks to everyone who came to help dig me out of the sand and thanks @Jeepie for the diverse terrain you let us experience. Oh nooo a boo boo, i'll have to bring a set of gardening gloves for the next person that comes to help me dig my car out.

Thank you very much @Frederic @Asif Hussain @Gaurav for giving us the amazing opportunity to experience one of unique terrain. I totally agree we cannot compare Abu dhabi desert to Dubai and sharjah. Once you get into the dunes area you will be awe to see the massive dunes all around you and every other dune is a perfect playground. so you have to stop for a moment and decide which one to start with you can bash them from left to right to top to bottom or from center where ever you want.😅 Im counting days for the next trip. 🙏

Needless to say it was an amazing day. Thank you @Rahimdad, @Abu Muhammad and @Yousef Alimadadi for everything you did. I was thrilled to see litterally everyone coming out with their shovels to assist stucks. This team was really synchronised and everyone wanted a good experience, and we all got it. This is how i ended my day after the drive 😉

The lens lover club was definitely a brilliant idea 😄

Hi all, Thank you all for your support during the epic recovery of my Cherokee, that decided to break down on the ridge of a dune. What played out was the perfect example of the benefits of joining a club. Your surounded by highly competant individuals ready to support you in your time of need. I am happy to report that we managed to get my vehicle after much persistance, to the gravel road under the pilons. Not quiet sure how tbh. Many less skilled whould have thought it impossible. It's a good job it was Jan and not April!!! Thanks you to Richard, Brette, Tomas and everyone else that helped during the recovery. The vehicles now in the garage, so hopefully I can join you on a ride very soon. Rgds Leon

@Frederic during yesterday’s drive with Ale, @N@ved asked if he could be added to the wait list for this Astro photography ride. thank you

Good evening fellow adventurers, Tomorrow we will meet at 13:30 that's 1.30pm, not 2pm, not 12pm, not 10 am . Just so we're clear hee hee. We well head into Faqa to explore the shifting dunes of this stunningly beautiful desert area. We will cross some technical patches as well as some nice long range dunes where hopefully we'll have lots of opportunity to criss cross and ridge ride as we make our way towards solar park. Make sure you bring a sense of adventure as well as an abundance of good humour. The proposed convoys are as follows: Convoy 1 - Using RADIO CHANNEL 1 (one) Attendee Car Level Position @Foxtrot Oscar Black Xterra Expert Lead @Craig Finlayson Grey Wrangler IM 2nd Lead @Mikhail Lukichev Prado Fewbie 3rd @DANIEL NOGUEIRA Dodge Fewbie 4th @Tamas Hoffmann Pajero Adv CF @siddharth maheshwari @Tariq Carrimjee White wrangler White Wrangler Fewbie IM 6th 7th @Goutam Yellow wrangler IM 8th @Pancho / @Desert Dweller Red Wrangler Expert Sweep Convoy 2 - Using RADIO CHANNEL 2 (two) Attendee Car Level Position @Wrangeld Black Pajero Marshal Lead @Islam Soliman Black Yukon IM 2ndLead @Joe Biju Joseph Hummer Fewbie 3rd @Tero Vallas Prado IM 4th @Anvar Sadath Bekal White Pajero Fewbie 5th @Gaurav Soni Grey Pajero Fewbie 6th @David Ortells FJ Fewbie 7th @Jeepie Wrangler Expert Sweep

It was indeed an amazing first day. @Wrangeld and @Tamas Hoffmann were patient and in control throughout.

Hats off to @Wrangeld and @Tamas Hoffmann, can't fault the professionalism and organisation, knew exactly what was going on and what was expected at all times, throughly enjoyed ourselves this morning. For my next one can I now go on a newbie drive?

Thank you @Matt.T my amazing 2nd lead!

@Ganesan Kathirvel sorry to hear that. Hope you get negative results. Thanks for having taken the right decision. See you next time!