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DRIVE REPORT Dear Desert Wanderers, One of the facts about off-roading is that, no matter how well things may have been planned, drives are often happening in their own unpredictable way and with unexpected challenges. But that is one of the reasons why I like off-roading so much, because indeed when facing the unexpected one usually gets to see and live completely new situations and is called to adapt and react quickly to what is happening around. Yesterday's drive was one of those unpredictable drives, but for this exact reason was also a drive that I really loved. Everyone was extraordinarily on time, actually ahead of time, to the extend that we could hit the sand in advance (1st time ever in my drives, and this was already something unexpected..) There was something different in the air: everyone was happy, smiling and joking before departing and it reminded me of the feeling of the day those old times school trips, when everyone was excited by the upcoming "adventure". We moved by 6:57pm and we quickly made our way to the nearest tallest dune in the surroundings of 2nd December Cafeteria. The purpose was to get there just before 7:09pm and to have the chance to watch the sunset, but the horizon was too foggy and the sun unfortunately had faded away with no chance to see the red sky over the red dunes that I was hoping for. We then moved on the west side of Pink Rock, riding for a while along the mid-sized dunes and the rounded ridges alternated with sharp crests, in a short stint aimed at getting everyone progressively acquainted with the reduced light and then the darkness on one side and, on the other site, at checking the convoy's response to tune the drive level accordingly. As the sky became dark blue, we turned back towards Pink Rock, which the convoy easily climbed, enjoying a great view from the top, with a soft, warm wind blowing steadily at over 36°C of temperature. After crossing the pass, we headed along the eastern hillside, reaching the two spines of rocks that emerge from the sand on the south side of Pink Rock, which led us into an area of tall dunes and huge bowls where we started playing as we progressively gained altitude. It was at this point that @PaoloMaraziti, after having tried to resist probably too long, eventually surrendered to his motion sickness and asked the convoy to have a break. We stopped in a large elevated bowl, equally far from Tawi, 2nd December ad Al Badayer, with no easy and immediate way out to flat grounds nor an easy dirt track to exit. Despite the amazing support by everyone (including a pillow) and the fantastic care of everyone in the convoy, as it became evident that Paolo was in no condition not only to continue the drive but also to conduct his own vehicle to the nearest exit, it was decided that @Chaitanya D would take the driver's seat in Paolo's FJ Cruiser and, with a small convoy consisting of @Shaaz Sha, @M.Seidam and myself, to drive down to the lower grounds and from there to 2n December Road through the nearest flat track. On the face of it, it looked like an easy task, but Paolo was feeling so bad that we had to reroute and stop as needed, trying to find the smoothest way down so that our suffering friend could not get worse than he already was. Once we reached the tarmac, we agreed that Paolo would rest for a while to see if he would get well enough to drive or not. We quickly made our way back to the convoy, who had been waiting for quite some time in the bowl. From what I gather, while driving might have been preferable, a stop in the middle of nothing under a sky full of stars was anyway and enjoyable diversion for a short while. As we restarted, we progressively headed south, wandering around two subsequent areas with beautiful huge dunes and large bowls, where we really had fun, climbing as high as we could get and riding on top of as many round ridges we could find. After Paolo texted me that he was OK and safely driving back home, I could fully focus on leading, relieved. Everyone did well: a few (expected) stucks and refusals, largely self-recovered with the great support of @Shaaz Sha as Center Forward and @Chaitanya D as Sweep, who both surely and calmly guided everyone out of trouble. I can't say I saw much of what happened in the back, but I can say that, given the night driving conditions and the technical level of the drive, the convoy did very well last night. I had eyes only on my great second lead, @Thomas Varghese, who had a hard time in finding what was the right distance to keep from my back bumper to allow for enough enough space to compensate my sudden decelerations while figuring out which way to go and to avoid finding himself too far away so as to lose the benefit of seeing my lines and having his way lit up by my lights. A couple of crested situations and a small but deceiving pocket required tugging and winching, but overall Thomas did magnificently. @Russand @Werno followed smoothly in the convoy, as did @Alain Canivet-Abikhalil except for a deflated tire which required a quick air top up. @Shaaz Sha was literally running to support whenever needed: I was amazed by his enthusiasm and energy. I really didn't have a chance to see how @Darren Brooke, @Lakshmi Narasimhan, @Danish Mohammaddid at the back, but from what I gathered while chatting at the exit point, they had their good part of challenges and fun, as did @GauravSoni and @M.Seidam. The latter - on top of the rest - got to enjoy the °night chase run° on our way back from the tarmac back to the convoy after we left Paolo and I pushed a bit, while @Chaitanya D, to whom I'm thankful for the great help, was my passenger. We eventually made our exit at Al Badayer intersection on the E44 Hatta Road by 10:55pm, a good hour later than planned, but, having received unanimous consent to extend the drive a bit more, we all exited with plenty of good memories of the night, above all (surely for me) the good feeling of belonging to a great off-road club, @Carnity, where solidarity, teamwork, patience and understanding are championed, as Paolo's story demonstrated yesterday. We drove approx. 35km (with another 10km to lead Paolo out) with an average moving speed of 16.9km/h (maybe a bit less excluding the detour to the tarmac) with, most notably, an ascent of +315/-280m which tells about how much we climbed and descended throughout the drive. Congratulations to everyone for another great drive and see you soon in the sand, especially @PaoloMaraziti, who has even a doctor's prescription to go off-road!!

,hello guys. Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher for yet another super drive and thanks to @Chaitanya D for guiding us all from the back. @PaoloMaraziti, i belive it was a bad day for you and was unfortunate to exit you earlier. hope you are good now. Being at the center of the convoy I didn't have much troubles today coz @PaoloMaraziti, @Russ, @Werno, @Alain Canivet-Abikhalil did a great job 🤪👍. @Thomas Varghese played his role to perfection as the second lead. @Darren Brookedid really good in managing his Chevy , @Lakshmi Narasimhanand @Danish Mohammad did great with their pajeros. 👍👍. About the tail end we had a strong team at the back. @M.Seidam, and @Gaurav Soni did very well at the back and thanks for all your guidance from the back @Chaitanya D😀🙏🙏. thank you and join you guys soon.

Hi @PaoloMaraziti first of all really happy to hear that you are better . Definitely there is nothing to apologise for at all . We all get in together and we never leave any one behind . Take care and we see you soon pal 🙏😉👍

hope you are all ok now and will catch up with you later😀👍

Dear @Lorenzo Candelpergher Superb trip report! . Thank you for the amazing drive and route you have chosen . The “ night chase run “ was a bonus 🤣 also I would like to thank @Chaitanya D for watching our back in the dark as well as @Thomas Varghese our second lead and off course @Shaz Shah for his great effort to guide and help our fellow drivers when was needed. It was indeed a night were every one has helped with much love and passion , and this is the spirit of who we are helping and caring and watching one another . Thank you every one and well done 👍

Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergher, @Chaitanya D, @Shaz Shah and all the seniors in the drive for such a wonderful evening drive. Except for few cresting and minor refusals all were self recovered. Kudos to the entire convoy. Have to mention the importance of Dr. as the presence of @Chaitanya D and @M.Seidamwas reassuring safety of @PaoloMaraziti and was glad to see the effort taken by team in dropping out @PaoloMarazitiby taking long route to ensure his safety. Hats of to @Carnity team. Way to go!!! Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergher for extending the drive as a token of acknowledgement of the entire team who were waiting patiently and concerned about the safety of the fellow men and crew. Looking forward for another wonderful drive. Have a nice week ahead.

@PaoloMaraziti no need to apologies Good to know you feel better and see you soon !

I agree with what @Frederic said. However I saw many cars flying of a ridge due to approaching with higher-than-needed-speed to avoid getting crested but resulting in flying off the crest and land hard with front almost hitting ground, depending on the sensitivity of the airbag impact sensors can deploy the airbags. what @Lawrence_Chehimi mentioned about ABS is 100% true too. However, personally, I don’t like kill switches as they add more potential failure points to sensitive systems and if they are not done professionally can lead to unpleasant incidents. So I go for the simple solution of unplugging the fuses from the fuse box while deflating and put them back while inflating. In my case, 4 fuses; takes 10 seconds. Of course I know this may not be an acceptable solution for our inconvenience-tolerant Lazyboy gang @Hisham Masaad @Ahab Shamaa @Watteau @Lorenzo Candelpergher @Niki🤣🤣🤣 switching gear @Christopher Assal, when do we get to try the cake?

I was recently sweeping a convoy and witnessed first hand the importance of keeping “enough” distance between the cars.. getting stuck or losing the track is the least of my concerns compared to what I witnessed getting my heart almost out of my chest. the convoy was smoothly moving through nice dunes and approaching a ridge that we had to ride and cross, slightly challenging but perfectly doable for F. Three cars on the backend of the convoy took part on this incident and I am thankful to the mercy of ALLAH that all walked out of it without any injuries or damage to their cars. the first car approached with a lower angel and less momentum than required so took the right decision to safely exist to reattempt. the next car was obviously too close and got distracted with the first car losing momentum and then existing, didn’t have enough time to react so slipped and got stuck close to the top of the ridge. third car followed without paying attention what happened to the 2 cars ahead and while midway to ride the ridge noticed the car infront of him stuck at the top so slowed down (too late) and car started to free slide stopping less than 1 meter from the stuck car almost bumping into it. While the 2nd and 3rd car were going through this the 1st car was already halfway accelerating going for another attempt which would for sure led to an unfortunate incident by then I arrived and had clear visibility and started shouting like crazy at the 1st car to stop! p.s. all 3 drivers are experienced drivers who I have seen in many drives drive extremely good. So in my opinion what went wrong: - situation awareness: all drivers should have full and undivided attention on what’s happening around them and respond; - radio comms: any car that has a refusal should or stuck should immediately announce to alert others are who may not be paying attention (all 3 cars failed to do so) - safety is everyone’s job: anyone on a drive (even if not a senior or support member) who observes a situation that can escalate to a problem should speak up and alert the convoy and not rely on seniors only to take action as sometimes those can be far from off or not having enough visibility of the situation - safe distance: occasionally missing the track is far accepted than being too close with the probability of a collision. Remember simple mistakes most times will not harm any one and can go unnoticed, but adding multiple small mishaps on top of each other can lead to large unfortunate incidents specially in extreme sports like offroading. Wish everyone safe, enjoyable, and full of fun drives

As a previous banker myself kindly note that these fraudulent transactions are mostly possible with someone inside the bank initiating it. Kindly file a police case and all these silly reasons for the delay in investigation by the bank is over ruled and you get your money back in a couple of days. A client of mine got scammed for 800000 AED once he got a payment for a contract on the same day without any OTP. The victim got the shock of his life when he went to withdraw money for paying out his sub contractors the next day. The bank gave him 180 days or 6 months for investigation and no guarantee of money back. He was in tears and discussed the matter with me where upon I suggested him to file a police complaint. The police arrested the scammer within hours and the money was returned to his account same day. Don't under estimate Dubai Police. They are smart and have the means and ways to help you in times of need like this.

Good Afternoon all. This is our sign-up list for the drive so far: Ben84 @Ben84 Russ @Russ darren thompson @darren thompson Zixuan Huang @Zixuan Huang Arshad Roojee @Arshad Roojee Tareck @Tareck Hardik Mody @Hardik Mody Chris Wing @Chris Wing Sunil Mathew @Sunil Mathew Warren Flay @Warren Flay We also have @Nihal17 and @Will Seivewright on waitlist. @Jeepie and @Nabil Bishara have kindly offered their help as support. We have a full drive and some waitlisted, so please let us know if you are not able to join. Will send final convoy numbering on Thursday afternoon. See you soon!

Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher for this lovely night drive in such a nice weather that everyone enjoyed. Appreciate team work, help and support given by @Chaitanya D @Thomas Varghese @Shaaz Sha & @Gaurav Soni @PaoloMaraziti Hope you are feeling well now .... Get well !! Stay Safe 🙏 Salute to team Carnity that proved our safety in their first priority and we are really in safe hands. Thanks to entire Convoy for your patience. Everyone stay safe... InshaAllah see you in next drive

@PaoloMarazitiglad to hear that you got home safely and feeling a bit better. Everyone helps everyone else, as you will remember from our last drive together 🤣 (Thank you again for the help you gave me). This is what makes @Carnity such a great club. Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergherfor a brilliant drive, loved the trip back through all the bowls. In the dark I had not quite realised just how high we must have climbed. Thoroughly enjoyed it and looking forward to joining the next drive you lead. Thanks as always to the support team @Shaz Shah,@Chaitanya D, @Thomas Varghesewithout you all these drives would not run as smoothly or be anywhere near as much fun. See you all on the next drive

@Islam Soliman you have no time for cake … fuses don’t plug themselves back in! Thankfully we are growing our gang one impressionable driver at a time!! Ready for cake at anytime and soon every convoy will have one of us to spread the word and wisdom … corrupting one newbie at a time

No I didn't like your Solution @Islam Soliman 🤣🤣

Very good topic. The reason why we generally ask the people to disable their airbags is related to the side airbags, which are connected to yaw sensors and have the tendency to trigger and go off during criss-crossing. Mind you that this is mainly on the modern cars, your Patrol (which might have only frontal airbags) will not have issues with this hence you can keep them activated and i agree they are there to protect you in case of a serious frontal impact. Traction control is a similar thing; again on modern cars it's a must to switch it off or the car will be constantly cutting the power. Long story short: You drive a Patrol which has little to no electronic gizmo's and full available power at all times. Consider yourself lucky !

Isn't pre-approved transactions are of small amount of 200 or 500 dhs max? Like the fuel station billing never needed a PIN...? Moral of the story: Spend all your money faster, before scammer takes it away.

thank you very much for the input guys. i get it its way too much risk to lift for small gain of ridge riding. Ill continue to push it and destroy the ridges as always. 😁

Thank God you recovered and also know the reasons for your situation. It all happens and nothing to worry, take care and hope to see rocking when you are back on sands.

@Lakshmi Narasimhan daylight is a key factor here. We say 5 - 10 cars to that you can see what the car ahead is doing and anticipate or change your route appropriately. At night, as you know, these senses need to be even more acute because of the inherent challenges of night drives. The job of a follower is to follow at a safe and effective distance. If you're too close, you end up refusing or cresting or otherwise because you did not leave enough time for anticipation if you're too far away, you might lose the lead [although, technically, unless it's and extreme or intermediate drive the lead should look out for that]. It's clear, like so many of us, you are trying to improve every drive and make these adjustments and be sensitive to the driving situation/reality. Essentially, however, you need to imagine that you are the lungs of a concertina moving backwards and forwards through the safe distance depending on what's happening both in front and behind you. Some feel that it's OK to more or less be autopilot while following, but that's not the point. Your responsibility in the convoy is effectively to smooth out the concertina effect, which is why distancing is no trivial matter and the limits are set by a number of cars.

Very well said Paolo , we fall always to raise again much stronger determined knowing how to play it safely 👍 happy to hear that you are in good health probably it’s time for me to post a new thread 😄

Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher for organising a mid-week drive, and my first night drive which I thoroughly enjoyed! To echo others, really glad to hear @PaoloMaraziti is feeling better, you had us worried there for a while buddy, I was expecting a helicopter ride home for you! Also thanks to @Chaitanya D, @Shaz Shah for the support and making these drives possible. Until the next time..

Dear Desertnauts, @Tero Vallas, @Thomas Varghese, @GauravSoni, @Hisham Masaad, @Amir Amiri, @Rob H and @Abu Muhammad, to update you on the stalling FJ, I should inform you that, after taking the car in for a more thorough check, they found error messages concerning the sparkplugs, injectors and throttle areas, which were checked, cleaned or replaced, when necessary, so things should hopefully be OK now. Furthermore, they detected a leak in the water pump, which they replaced. This is why the repairs took more time than expected, and I was not able to post our "repeat" drive on time for this week. Nonetheless, I will post the drive for next week. I trust that Wednesday afternoon would still be the day and time of your choice: if so, please acknowledge, or suggest otherwise. This time the drive may be in a different area than Faqa. This is due to some controversy currently being played out regarding an incident which took place with the AD police, and which resulted in heavy fines being levied on one of our convoys. As a consequence, it has been decided to stay clear of this particular area, until the situation has become clearer, and brushes with the AD border will no longer be an issue. I will still choose a challenging and entertaining location for the drive, which will be disclosed when the "repeat" drive will be posted. In the meantime, I wish you all a great week.

By the time giving the third dosage, all will be done🤣

Someone need to quickly come up with a vaccine for this virus before it gets widely spread 🤣🤣

It’s no surprise that cyber crime is on the rise varying between different kinds of ransomware attacks on individuals as well as large behemoth corporation despite of spending billions on their cyber defence but still proved ineffective in some occasions. FBI just announced recovery of millions of cryptocurrency that was paid in ransom to prevent shutdown of a key US pipeline company. I hope @Lakshmi Narasimhan you are not paying the price for this and the attackers are now coming after you in revenge of FBI success! Digital transformation comes with its own set of challenges; elevating the game higher and to some extent requires compromises on privacy, SPI guardrails, and exchange of confidential data. Financial services fraud is equally on the rise leveraging combination of cyber security breaches due to weak security frameworks, social intelligence breaches, and unfortunately inside jobs. I wish there is an easy answer to have a good night sleep, but unfortunately it’s a risk that we have to accept as individuals or businesses and sometime a price some of us have to sadly pay for the gains to quality of life and economy growth we all gain by embracing digital transformation. Some advises hopefully can help: - carefully choose who you bank with and only transact (specially online) with merchants using the highest available encryption technologies to make sure your data is not vulnerable. - Continuous change of your passwords/pin codes (every month or 2 max) is advisable and of course don’t use easy passwords or same passwords/pin across multiple platforms/cards. - Lots of attackers are able to mimic exact replicas of very known websites/merchants that you can’t tell any difference to the original websites and they know already you know these websites, you deal with them, and your trust them.. so most people will fall for it. The trick is the URL address they send you is going to be different from the original one, if you are not paying full attention you can easily fall for it. - Ensure SMS notification is setup for the correct phone number you always monitor to be on top and take immediate action against any suspicious transactions. - Stay vigilant with communication (phone, WhatsApp, emails, F2F,.. etc) as it’s found that most of the attacks starts by very “basic” social engineered phishing techniques that will not get any one suspicious until very late, but the information gathered by these techniques enable these attackers to have enough to empty your wallet sometime without leaving a single fingerprint behind!

I'm against lifts, Unless you go with some expensive mods that will include lower/upper arms, longer drive shafts on top of the shocks, springs, also keep in mind that you are increasing your center of gravity which is not much advisable for high speed driving.. I believe lifts are essential for rock crawling.

@Islam Solimansoon my Freind on the cake soon 🍰. Maybe some morning flapjacks for energy one day?!? 😂

Dear All, We all are advised to drive leaving safe distance (5-10 car space) from the car in the front. We all follow that no doubt its for all our safety. But while night drive the safety distance is reduced and we follow the car in the front very closely. During night with reduced visibility if can drive close (2-3 cars space), why not during day time? Of course day time drive pace might be more, still the alertness and response time will be better in day than night. Had any body else thought like me!!!! Just want to understand better!

Hi @Christopher Assal different vehicle models of the same brand might have differences even in their set up , usually modern cars are more electronically sophisticated while older ones are “simple” but not “simpler” ! Regarding disabling the side airbags it’s highly recommended as the drive difficulties gets higher as you climb the off road ladder , and in some vehicles like JGC is highly sensitive and the only way to disable it is to pull the fuse. For the front one as @Fredericmentioned it’s for the driver protection in case of hard frontal impact. ABS in Xterra for example kicks very soon and I felt it on my first Fewbie drive so I had it installed before I put a foot on brake for the second fewbie Power cut down ( especially on longe sidys ) can be dangerous, hence comes the importance of kill switch ( ABS+Traction control ) As You see it’s a learning curve we climb with our vehicles and along you will discover what is necessary and what is not safely . cheers

I have no kill switch installed in my Xterra since i bought at last July. Everyone told me that it is necessary same as you i am not having any power cutting issue or any serious breaking issue. Yes i feel the abs kicking sometimes but it is not bothering me at all. I might be the only high level driver driving a Xterra without kill switch.

Hi Everyone I've been off-road into the wadis and a couple of times into the desert, but please don't consider "experience" since I was with other beginners and might need to unlearn a lot of it. Saw the video, Totally Agreed to the COVID post, have clearance, recovery points, deflator, compressor, off road flag, and radio. See you there.

hello... yes I have some experience. and my car is equipped.

Hello All I have a bit of off road experience, but very little in sand. So... my experience will probably work against me. My recovery points are in good condition.

Look at the drive shaft of a stock vehicle compared to a vehicle with 2" lift kit. This is a Nissan Patrol.. How long would it last before it fails?

With regards to subject matter. Here is what i have to say or whine about my Xterra. 1. Lately i feel like my rear suspension is bottoming out very often. Specially on fast pace or Extreme drives. But if there are 2 passenger at back it will bottom out even on road hump. If i keep on driving with saggy rear suspension will it damage my chassis ? when search in some forums this is a common issue with Xterra's and most people seems to recommend add a leaf to rear to make it bit stronger and less saggy. 2. 10mm front skid plate is too low for some ridge riding. Sometimes i feel like it slowdown the car as im flattening all the ridges. but i dont want to change the skid plate im amazed how much it protect my car. hence thinking of a small lift (maybe a spacer lift) in front suspension to compensate ridge riding. Dear Xterrian and experts in carnity family, what is your thoughts and recommendations on this. @Foxtrot Oscar @Emmanuel @Chaitanya D @M.Seidam @Nivin @sertac @Thomas Varghese @Janarthan There are loads of Xterra owners here, Please feel free to tag them along.