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During the session I mentioned that I was working on one image from March. Here we go, today I've posted it to my social media. Overall, I took almost 800 photos from 02:27am to 5:44am. Around 100 selected photos were merged to form the star trails. Foreground was taken from another photo taken during twilight before sunrise. Everything is edited in the Adobe Lightroom. As usual, one of the RAW photos before processing.

DRIVE RSVP IS NOW CLOSED Convoy Setup 1) Frederic - Pajero SWB - Crew @Frederic 2) Niki - FJ Cruiser Black - Fewbie @Niki 3) Anoop Raj - FJ Cruiser - Newbie @Anoop Raj 4) Anoop Nair - Jeep Wrangler - Newbie @Anoop Nair 5) Tareck - Nissan Patrol Y62 - Newbie @Tareck 6) Hisham Masaad - FJ Cruiser Black - Intermediate @Hisham Masaad 7) Sunil Mathew - Jeep Wrangler Yellow - Newbie - @Sunil Mathew 8 ) Pacific - Jeep Wrangler SWB - Fewbie - @Pacific 9) Mukundan Nair - Nissan Xterra - Intermediate - @Mukundan Nair 10) Lakshmi Narasimhan - Pajero LWB Gold - Fewbie - @Lakshmi Narasimhan 11) Darren Brooke - Chevy Tahoe - Fewbie - @Darren Brooke 12) Richard Franks - Jeep Wrangler Red - Fewbie - @Richard Franks 13) Lawrence Chehimi - Nissan Patrol Y62 - Intermediate - @Lawrence_Chehimi 14) Goutam - Jeep Wranger Yellow - Intermediate - @Goutam 15) Nivin - Nissan Xterra - Advance - @Nivin 16) Nabil Bishara - Jeep Wrangler - Advance - @Nabil Bishara We will be using Channel 2: 446.03125 Mhz. Please make sure you have your off-road gears as per your level. See you guys tomorrow at 05:30AM !

Prelude: When i bought my car back in October 2020 a combination of trust in professionals and a lack of knowledge and time led me to sign a third party service contract for my car along with (at least internally) committing to going to said garage for all my repairs and the such. Over the past couple months i've been quite disappointed with my experiences as prices were very high and as time went on kept feeling like i couldnt trust the work being done or if the work i was asking for was being done at all. This has culminated in a recent visit to my garage of choice where i presented them with a list of symptoms and observations after which i received a bill that was about half the rice i bought my car for. I will use one of the items on the list as an example: Car details i presented: CEL (check engine light) is on, the TJ has a dashboard diagnostic feature, it is basic but very useful so the code that was displayed after i input the konami code was P0431 (Catalytic Converter efficiency below expected threshold) Car passed registration in October with near perfect emissions Noticed wires dangling from the engine bay that werent there before OBDII diagnostics port broken by previous owner Garage assessment: OBDII port repair : AED1500 (they wish to plug a diagnostic tool in to figure the issue based on the O2 readings in the PCM) Replace Catalytic converter: AED1100 I then took that car back and did what i normally do, cleaned it up properly and took a look myself when i had some time, albeit this was probably a week later. My observations: O2 sensor in Bank 1 Sensor 2 had it's wires ripped clean off (my assumption is that we went over bush or something and it got caught as the connector unfortunately has a poor mounting location under the chassis. I then tracked the wires that had been tangling and they went into the connector for said sensor. A simple visual inspection in my garage with the light in my phone has given me the answer to which the solution is 10 minutes of my time (if you dont count the time it takes to ship the part from the US) and AED160. I've attached relevant files like the Locations of the cats and sensors and the old sensor. Epilogue: With all this in mind, im willing to accept that i perhaps got unlucky on many fronts. Im a low value customer because i do a lot of my own work on the car, i aslo dont have much money to spend on frivolous addons and such, and i could just have drawn the short straw and gotten the laziest of their otherwise good mechanics. This all though leads me to this, would there be any space in carnity for a DIY car maintenance section or even a day teaching each other how to diagnose issues and fix them? How often do you check your car yourself? How often do you lubricate joints and metal bits that are likely to rub? How often do you check your Oil, Coolant and Steering fluid? Are you willing do something as simple as screwing in an AED160 piece in your car yourself to save AED2600?

@Niki thanks so much for the shout out 😍 and your follow on IG. I also can't wait to join you all and look forward to many photography adventures and drives with such an enthusiastic group! I haven't posted it yet but this is what I was doing on our moonless night, along with a Milky Way time lapse I haven't even had the energy to look at yet; these all nighters are amazing and fun but exhausting 😂💔!

EID MUBARAK to everyone.

Good evening fellow adventurers, Eid Mubarak to those of you celebrating, Tomorrow we shall meet at 3:30pm in the tree shade at Murquab. As mentioned the aim is to get to Last Exit, but teh main aim is to have lots of fun in the safest way possible We shall be using Radio channel 2 (two) My proposed convoy is as follows: Driver Car Rank Position @Foxtrot Oscar Black X Marshal Lead @TT_Dubai White LC Newbie 2nd Lead @Zixuan Huang Pathfinder Newbie 3rd @Charbel Yazbeck Silver Pajero Newbie 4th @Senthil Kumar Red Wrangler Fewbie 5th @Ishraque Ahammed Explorer Newbie 6th @Kassem Zaiter Black Pajero (SWB) Newbie 7th @MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQ Yellow Wrangler IM CF @Probir Mukherjee White LC IM 9th @Cale Hugill White Wrangler Newbie 10th @Wade Pat2 Black LC Newbie 11th @Craig Finlayson Grey Wrangler IM 12th (team) @Lakshmi Narasimhan Gold Pajero Fewbie 13th @Thomas Varghese White X IM 14th @Desert Dweller Red Wrangler Adv Sweep PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP IF YOU CANNOT ATTEND AS WE HAVE DRIVERS ON THE WAITLIST

Wish you all Eid Mubarak!!!

Very well said @Arman but sadly people after spending 2600 instead of 160 don't tend to share their story and learning like yours. Either they are too busy / rich / afraid to tell the saga. Here's the section you can use: https://carnity.com/forums/forum/268-offroad-mods-diy

Eid Mubarak to everyone !!

I shot about 410 images that ended up being whittled down to 370 or so by the time I removed a few dark frames and plane streaks. I was going to shoot longer but decided to get started on that milky way time lapse. Here's a little time lapse I made of the star trail images. I don't know how well it will play here and I had to compress it to fit under 10MB, but hopefully you can still get a nice idea of it 😊. StarTrails_TL_Compressed.MP4 I love it! Where was this taken @Mikhail Lukichev?

Thanks Guys, Eid Mubarak

Thanks for the wishes

Thank you @Vanessa8580, @jodha singh shekhawat, @Brette and @varunmehndiratta, the seniors in the drive for your lead and support. Lovely morning drive with quite a blend of side slopes, climbs, drops, and some technical patches thrown in as topping, which resulted in some stucks, refusals and couple of re-routes. One more step forward as a learning experience for me and getting closer to being in sync with my car. Kudos to a fellow riders Looking forward to the next drive!!

Thanks @Ale Vallecchi for the wonderful drive...Criss crossing was the theme and that was clear from moment GO. It was good idea to keep rolling the position .. should explore this is in all Intermediate drives .. 👍.. The whole convoy did pretty well . Just an idea (personal thoughts) - should explore this drive in the early morning hours. In afternoon, Qudra ranges are extremely tough to spot. We had to cut down many ridges due to the challenges of light and weather.

Eid mubarak 🌙

EID Mubarak

Awesome... just awesome... can’t think of any better word to describe the drive today... one of the smoothest moving drives I have been on, very few refusals/stuck’s... first half was more challenging for me, hot weather, white sands and blowing winds made it very difficult to see the tracks of the vehicle ahead. @Ale Vallecchithe pace was just perfect we started slowly but the momentum picked up soon. Thanks to fantastic team/convoy for their support and guidance throughout. perfect start to the eid break......Eid Mubarak everyone, wishing you and your loved ones a happy and safe festive break.

Absolutely agree with you @Arman on the way the "trusted" off road garages or mechanics behave. If you dont agree with them , and if you dont do a lot of mods with them they will be least interested in doing your simple works. DIY checks is good because it always helps you understand your car better atleast for the minor or easily doable fixes. Some tiny bit of it is included , and will be explained when you do your advance lead/ recovery trainings as you progress in your levels with Carnity. For a desert car , check every week better. Especially cleaning the air filters , oils , coolant . You will be surprised to see how much sand will be there in the air filters .

EID MUBARAK

Eid Mubarak Thank you Lakshmi 🙏

Eid mubarak

As usual Prof. @Ale Vallecchi lead a very technical drive through very technical area. Brushed up the skills learned earlier to finesse. IM drive for sure but it was more of brushing up skills. The convoy responded well to the Professor's class and I believe he will give an A+ to the convoy. After every drive my shoulders lock up and start to pain but today they are as light as feather. The sand was super soft at some areas but Ale's forewarning to keep the tire pressure between 10 to 11 psi helped a lot. Thank you @Ale Vallecchi.

Good afternoon @Karthikeyan Govindarajan, @Anish Varghese, @Joshua Thibodeaux, @Willie, @Luc Khaldoun, @Kailas, @Taufique Surve, @Batuhan Kulac Ready for tomorrow morning? Just a couple of things: 1. Before the drive, please go through the link below (COVID precautions) and in that same link click on "totally agree" emoji : 2. For those who have a radio, please program it before the drive: we will be using Carnity Radio Channel 1 (446006.25). 3. When you will arrive at our meeting point and park to deflate, please do leave a good 10m gap between the cars as mention in point 1. This is important. Our convoy numbering will be as follows: 1. Emmanuel (Xterra White) - lead 2. Willie (Pajero SWB Red - fwb) - 2nd lead 3.Joshua Thibodeaux (Sierra AT4) 4. Luc Khaldoun (Patrol) 5. Karthikeyan Govindarajan (LC 200 - fwb) 6. Taufique Surve (Xterra Grey) 7. Anish Varghese (Wrangler) 8. Batuhan Kulac (G63 Red- fwb) 9. Kailas (Wrangler Red - expert) - flying sweep See you in the sands!

There is a saying in my language “ no better than your nail can scratch your skin” so I learned since I joined Carnity not to cut my nails till Saturday night 🤣 and yes I agree with the DIY concept more or less at least for the basic stuff on weekly basis or let’s say after the weekly drive ! ... from after leaving the inflation point back home listening to what she might whisper to my ears! To visual inspection to fluid levels , under car , cv boot cracks , springs , leaks , filter cleaning and replacing , towing points integrity especially after many pulls ...etc ..and if I can’t DYI at least I know somehow what’s going on and recheck . One time I have been told by my mechanic that what you hear is your differential is dying ... but I was not convinced .. digged my self with taking pictures and videos that he him self was convinced it’s not and issue solved in 10 min standing work and refused to take one dirham from me ! Unfortunately there are some situations we need a scratcher when the thing is in the back and our nails can’t reach 🤪 but at least we know where the itch is located 🤣

I lost trust in mechanics many years ago, even car agencies here know nothing and cannot be trusted. Most of the times I have to tell them what to do and what to check because I had to spend some time online reading what other people did that had similar symptoms. I like to work on cars, I also help my friends resolve small issues from changing a coolant tank, changing disks, brake pads, engine mounts, shocks,etc... I tend to save a lot of money by doing these simple jobs. For example, when my mercedes had 30k on its odo, the agency wanted 4000 aed for changing the brakes!! I ended up purchasing the parts from them, and got from amazon two different types of grease (one is rubber safe to lubricate the pins and another one for lubricating the other moving parts) and a brake cleaner, I replaced all parts in my parking. Took me around an hour and half but I saved around 2000-2500 aed. I once replaced a coolant tank for a friend, got the parts from the agency for 120 aed and the coolant for 100 aed and replaced it my self then bleeded the system also was a 30 min job and saved around 1000 aed. I did same thing on an older car I had and replaced all shocks and springs. Just look online you can find tons of videos, and most of the jobs are quite easy. I have tons of stories with agencies here and back home, and some salesmen try to fool you if they think you don't have much knowledge on cars. I had a fight with Nissan few years ago over an AC compressor, they wanted to change the whole assembly but it was only a faulty clutch, they couldn't fool me on that so the salesman wanted to convince me later to do a system flush for 400 aed saying that when the compressor's clutch fails, it contaminates the system😂, so I made a scene im front of other customers and ended up getting 50-60% discount on the part and no labor charges... The worst stories are with private garages that work with insurance companies😂

Still available and highly motivated if someone drops out.

Eid Mubarak ti everyone!

Eid Mubarak

Thanks @Vanessa8580 for another fun drive. Appreciate @Brette for pulling me off that ridge at the end after getting stuck towards the end!

I love the sky’s colour … I need to work on my Lightroom curves usage as it’s so easy going to the extremes and hence make my sky’s look over saturated/ blue! Thank you for sharing these @Mikhail Lukichev … stunning pics and inspiring me to try again and keep practicing … do share your insta details! I am now following @samamaraalso and she has some stunning shots and cannot wait for her to join us … having so many talented photographers keen to share and teach is a privilege!

Amazing !!

Thank you all for the drive today, it was more challenging than the abt newbie drive but much more fun. See you around in the sands~

Looking forward yet another wonderful drive and to meet you all and have fun in the sand!!!

Looking forward to seeing you too this evening. We have a great convoy full of fun and as you said, familiar faces.

The Magic of Fossil Rock to Faya (Convoy 2) Since it was the first day of the Ramadan holiday, it was great to see so many of you so enthusiastic to join the drives that eventually 2 convoys had to be made to accommodate all of you. I had the pleasure indeed to lead the convoy 2. Big thanks to @Lorenzo Candelpergher for planing, preparing, posting of the drive and making the drive possible. Unfortunately, we could not have the two convoys reconvene as planned but i am sure we all in both convoys had fun. We started at the Mahafiz entrance and really it was quite difficult to try to avoid as many bushes as I could. It might have felt bumpy but once we made it to the really playable dunes, I could see all of you pushing your car and enjoying those dunes. We were very lucky to have been able to enjoy quite some of them, especially the long roller coaster rides at the famous long range dunes. We then proceeded to the foot of the fossil rock and the climb felt like a piece of cake to this great bunch of fewbies. Luckily there was not much rock on the other side, so we crossed the fossil rock to get to the other side. We then embarked on our way to the great Faya through camel rock. And finally the area in the second half was less bushy so we could enjoy the dunes with slightly technical and softer dunes. Since all of us drove very well, we barely had minor refusals which was mainly due to loss of momentum but was very well managed under the amazing support of @Islam Soliman and @Ranjan Das. We were very fortunate to find Faya area empty with just few bikers, its was like the whole area was all ours which gave us the opportunity to experience it more. We then climbed from the back of Faya while enjoying the bowls and then we attempted the front side as much as we could as we were the only one around. I hope everybody enjoyed the drive. Thank you to the team for doing so well yesterday. @luis manteconyou played the important role of the second lead very well, thank you. @Ranjan Das thank you for being the centre forward. Special thanks to our flawless sweep @Islam Soliman. Enjoy your holidays and see you all soon in the sand...

Nikon D3300 ISO 800 15 Seconds 19mm F/2.8 All of my Nikon shots facing the well were sadly out of focus ... lessons learnt ready for the next trip

iPhone 12Pro Max. Ultra wide 10second exposure (Lightroom edit) Sony RX100 (ISO 1600, 10.4mm, f/1.8, 65 seconds 5 stacked images) (Lightroom edit… will replace if I can improve via PS)

@EmmanuelI just clicked on going but don’t see my name in the convoy list , can u please confirm if I can join this ride 😎thanks

Thanks a lot @Frederic for organising this evening! A very nice opportunity to take the time to enjoy the star lighted night in the desert. @Mikhail Lukichev, thank you for your clear and patient indications and advises. You have saved us many hours of try and retry. Thank to all for sharing experience and results, and helping me to dig into the camera menu ! A first sample from the jpg format, I need more time to explore the possibilities out of the raw format before putting them in the gallery! ISO3200, 18mm, f3,5, 15" for the cars ISO1250, 18mm, f3,5, 15" for the trees

By two cars that is 😉