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THE UNEVENTFUL DRIVE - IM LEVEL. Looks like @Shaaz Sha's faqa adventures are uneventful. Of course for a convoy consisting of @Ranjan Das, @Simon Dawood, @Mus_hus78, @Zed, @Tom B, @Mohamad Anwer, evercool @Matt.T, @Anoop Nair, veteran @Ashok chaturvedi, me & the not so looping @Looper this is business as usual. A split tire, a pop out and a non starting wrangler is not going to deter us from pursuing our adventure. Just business as usual. The crowning moment came when @Tom B's car decided to scare him with an angled stop at the slip face of a dune. There were 5 of us who had witnessed almost the same situation in a previous drive at LIWA and how the legend @Gaurav handled the situation to bring the car down to the flats. The lead @Shaaz Sha, @Ashok chaturvedi, @Ranjan Das, @Mus_hus78 & me were the witnesses and students. For us the situation was perfect to sharpen our skills which @Gaurav taught us. @Tom B was level headed to switch off the engine, cool to obey the instructions of the lead, and courageous to stay in the car and execute the necessary maneuvers called for by the lead. End result - A big grin on everybody's face and a sigh of relief to see a successful recovery. With this @Shaaz Sha has proved he is worthy enough to be a lead and to go on to be a marshal. Special thanks to everybody else in the convoy to climb up the dune and slowly shovel out the car to bring it angled perpendicular to the ground down and to let gravity help the car to slide down to safety. Kudos and cheers. Will not bat an eyelid to join a convoy of such strength and comradeship. @Mohamad Anwer had a split tire which was exchanged with his spare tire. I am amazed by the tool kit of @Ashok chaturvedi which had all the box wrenches, extenders and even a clutch ratchet. Got to shop for 1 and keep it in my car. This was soon followed by a rear right pop out from my car. Fixed in no time and we continued the adventure. Soon after @Anoop Nair's wrangler gave him a nail biting moment of not starting. My X had given me some tense moments like this before and I knew what to make the car start. @Anoop Nair please go to a good electrical shop and change the solenoid switch of your starter motor. The solenoid motor is now beginning to fail. All this only added to the excitement of the drive. Then came the tense moments at the slip face of a slide slope of @Tom B's car. Nothing deterred us to stop the drive. Thats why I called it an uneventful drive. This is all now routine to us IM drivers of @Carnity club. We go in as 1 unit and exit as 1 in the same convoy order. SEE YOU ALL SOON IN THE SANDS.

We started off at around 0620 am from the lisaili camel tracks, getting into some technical areas for a short warm up run, reaching the wider dunes of lisaili, when @Ale Vallecchi decided to push the envelope and get the maximum out of our fewbies with some ridge riding and criss crossing. Thats when we had our events of the day...3 pop outs and 4 tugs !! I hope @Paolo Pellegrini, @Joseph Sebastian had very important take aways from the drive. its not about getting pop out or getting tugged, but its about whether we understand why it happened and to fine tune our driving in order to prevent it from happening next time. When getting on and off ridges, i wish to add some pointers which i learnt during my earlier drives , from the man @Ale Vallecchi himself !! 1. If you overshoot the ridge on your first chance , please exit down and do not attempt to fight gravity and climb back up, its not going to work. You can always loop back and try again or rejoin the convoy safely. 2. Our technique should be to angle your car to smoothly get on the ridge and ride "square" on the ridge for sometime and exit down. 3. When you exit down, drive into the slope, not slide into it. These are exactly the words Ale uses to coach us - i still hear these ringing in my ears - "wheels pointing down", "dont slide into it, steer into it" etc 4. Be careful, where you stop your car and at what angle you stop. With soft sand all around , you never know where you are going to sink when you start moving again. Try to stop on flat areas or at an angle so that gravity helps you to ease out of the sand. 5. Stopping on a ridge is a strict no-no. If the driver in front struggles or gets stuck, please exit down while you still can, so that we have one less recovery to attend to. I have made the same mistake myself during my earlier drives. 🙂🙂 @Gerrit Bus with his loooong gladiator, crested once to be pulled out by @TT_Dubai..i saw you flying off the dune on your second attempt...😄😄.. pls post the videos Good to see and drive with Tim, @TT_Dubai who remains a fewbie by choice --- we started our @Carnity journey almost at the same time ..i still remember your manual wrangler, the LC and now you have an FJ...looks like you are now settled with your choice 😉 😀 Pleasure meeting and driving with the others @Andrew McCarthy - great SL @Imran Kashif - great Driving and involvement in our pop out episodes with his jack and sound advices.. Just to hint that at Carnity, we dont jump the convoy order even if the car in front gets stuck or slows down, struggles etc. unless it is required from the safety point of view, temporarily. @Federico Galbieri driving very well behind me..at couple of crossings , i think i made it a bit difficult for you while trying to avoid churned sand and altering the tracks slighly, apologies @Gurcharan Mehta our second drive together..as usual , very well at ease with your modified LC As per my GAIA stats , we did almost 78km when we exited at Qudra, good for a fewbie drive!! And thanks to @Ale Vallecchifor the opportunities to perform recoveries and all guidances during the same. Hope our paths cross again on future drives!! See you all!!

Hi @varunmehndiratta, thank you for today's ride 😄, it was great, challenging and very fast pace (70+km!). @JeromeFJ no-fuss driving style. you made it look effortless while I was bouncing around 😅. @Haitham Khattab, great job sweeping. @RiaanJH and @george charbel nice meeting you and @takeshi sobue, nice seeing you again. Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone. Sam The route on Gaia if anyone is looking for it. https://www.gaiagps.com/map/?loc=9.1/55.2637/24.7880&pubLink=9dNmEuZtTyHvEpP5kbHziCVs&trackId=a29c58cf52f1234b2f49868f00580463d813a47b

Thank you @varunmehndiratta for the drive this morning. You made sure the full western area Qudra was covered, and no dune remains untouched by our wheels ! Very well done for all the convoy, capable drivers in capable vehicles! @Sam K thank you for the FJ tips, @george charbel, well done with the manual Jeep, @RiaanJH @Haitham Khattab @takeshi sobue It was a pleasure to drive with you. See you next time !

Excellent summaries from @Sunil Mathew, @Joseph Sebastian, and @Paolo Pellegrini. Grazie mille @Ale Vallecchi for leading, the excellent communication, guidance and tuition, and (mostly🤣) patience. It was a pleasure and education to be second lead. Many many ridge crossings, soft sand and unusually difficult light (which made it hard for Alessandro to plot a route, and for me to even see his tracks at times) made for a very testing but enjoyable outing, from which I learnt a lot. Many thanks to @Sunil Mathewand @TT_Dubai for the support and everybody else who helped with my popout. Onwards!

Thanks @Ale Vallecchi @Sunil Mathew and @TT_Dubai for the ride. It was lot of fun for me because popout is fun when you realize you gonna have one few moments before it happens and when you get stuck in a ridge because you shouldn't have gone there in the first place! So great lesson learn for me! I liked the ride, the speed, the changes in scenery and the group. Everybody so helpful and friendly. Looking to @Ale Vallecchi floating so naturally and gently over the dunes like an experience sailor it is always "spettacolare"

Dear Sand Sailors Super soft sand, surprisingly bearable weather, herds of gazelles cheering us up through the route - we had it all to make it a fun drive and thanks to the awesome pack of drivers, that's how it turned out to be. Drive went in so smooth that if not for Gaia, i wouldn't have believed that we covered around 72Km at an average moving speed of 24kmph through this mix of long range, tech and bushy terrain. Well done all 👍 @RiaanJH - perfect SL, maintained a very good distance and responded to calls promptly.. Thanks for your support . @george charbel very nicely driven. This wasnt an easy drive - small convoy with very diverse experience and a different than usual terrain. You handled it all pretty well and ofcourse we saw a perfect case of how much difference right deflation can make to a drive experience. Very well done especially on those self recoveries..👍 @Sam K apart from couple of small refusals almost a perfect drive for you. @takeshi sobue nothing in this drive could have challanged your FJ150 😂 Was fun to hear it roar. Though at times it made me think - was it really required for it to roar today? A bit more focus on right lines and carrying forward the momentum can take it to another level. @Haitham Khattab very nicely swept 👍 thanks a lot for your support. Thanks @JeromeFJ for joining in and sharing your experience and knowledge through the drive. Thanks all for a lovely morning, looking forward to see you all soon. Next week, m planning the drive around Lisali - the long range side of it (not the usual tech that Lisali is known for) - so if interested watch out for the calendar post on monday 7pm. Some stats from today's drive for all who are interested

It was a really nice collection of dune bashers today.

Thank you @varunmehndiratta for leading us today. The track was exciting and the pace was nice.Thanks @RiaanJH for SL, you made it look so easy. Thanks @JeromeFJfor supporting the convoy at the center, always pleased to see you. Thanks to all my convoy team mates for making this fun@george charbel, @Sam K, @takeshi sobue, well done everyone

Thanks @Hisham Masaad, @Chris Wing, @Rizwanm2 for a great drive! The zig zags up the dunes were very nice. With a shovel here, and a tug there and some inpromptu car repairs were all part of the experience. See you all soon on the sand!

@Ale Vallecchi thanks very much for a very intense and challenging drive! Two stucks, one pop out, a couple of refusals and a close encounter with a bush(!) meant a great learning experience for me with more more ridge riding and crossing than probably I have done till date in all my drives put together 😅. And the liquid-soft sand and good pace meant the adrenaline was high and focus was total. Thanks also to @Sunil Mathew for the assistance and @Imran Kashif for keeping an eye out behind me. And @TT_Dubai for valuable sweeper support. Look forward to seeing you all on the next sand adventure...

Another great ride this morning; thank you again for organising @Asif Hussain !

I enjoyed very much the drive this morning. This short convoy format was perfect to explore the variety of terrains of this Faqa area. Also good to be more specific in the coaching of each driver according to his experience, and the car he is driving. As expected, we had very soft sand from the beginning, and I was the first one to misjudge a ridge apparently round and smooth…. and being dragged into a pocket, stuck with a weird angle. A cautious self recovery got me out. A bit later a first criss crossing was an excellent demonstration of the #dontfightgravity thing. Two cars had a dangerous fishtailing, and I stopped everyone for a reminder. After this warmup, we could enjoy the empty dunes, passing from the semi-technical area, to bigger dunes, crossing straight or criss crossing, working on the momentum to keep the car moving at the right pace. We had some bigger dunes where the most experienced drivers could play with the balance of their car on the sharp ridges. Each convoy member was focused and concentrated, and improved during the drive itself. This allowed us to complete a full loop of 60 km, coming back at our starting point. The average moving speed was 20.1 km/h, very respectable for a FB drive. @Alfred Alinazar Thank you for the 2nd lead. You were stopping when needed, and adjusted the route for the rest of the convoy. You have a safe handling of your car. @takeshi sobue very good drive, but don’t rely too much on your car. You can improve being more focused on the lines the cars in front are taking. @Shahid Mehmood, good drive also, you were attentive to the explanations during the drive, and the benefit was there. @Lucky sAm nice to see a new FJ in the convoy. Once you will get used to the car, you will enjoy pushing its capabilities. @Richard Franks always a pleasure to have you in the convoy. The red jeep is very reliable, even if it was challenged a bit on the high ridges @Daniel Rodas a big thank you for the sweep and assistance during recoveries. Your driving with the Pajero is flawless ! Thank you all for participating to the drive this morning with an excellent spirit, enjoy the rest of the weekend ! Please post photos or comments if you have.

a morning well spent @Hisham Masaad always a pleasure driving with you. was fun to meet old and new faces.

Convoy Numbering 1. Srikumar 2. Mayank 3. AlexM 4. Gaurav 5. Trekado 6. Vaibhav 7. Waqas Parvez 8. Goutam 9. Amr Aydin 10. Rob S 11. Morshedi 12. Shaker 13. Ashok chaturvedi

Convoy order updated

hahaha can you see me? already deflated and waiting for a miracle from @Srikumar 🤣

I bet @Charbel is on standby at the nearest gas station waiting for someone do drop 😁

Dear friends @Gertjan @Tareq Al Turq @Mohamad Anwer @RiaanJH @Chris Wing@Prakash Anoop @Fabien Monleau @Charbel@Tareck @Rizwanm2 Finally week is over and looking forward to deflate work pressure and tension, and inflate new positive energy to prepare for the next week. Back to badayer with all the fun and nice dunes, which always enjoy. Look forward to see you 5 am, with your radios on channel 4, and in case you want to inform me something, my mobile number is 0506318834. Below is the seats arrangement, which I hope all will like. Nice evening.

Hi Good Morning @varunmehndirattaI can't join today,you guys enjoy the ride