Thomas Varghese

The beast ready to take on the desert

Men at work

Bought the flag. U can add me.

@Foxtrot Oscar I will try and inform you before 6

I want to test @Wrangeld's iconic statement. In the desert a 20 AED shovel is your best friend. 😅. I wish I could use friends who can shovel like @Chaitanya D & @Kailas. Just imagine their plight when I still have pain in my shoulder doing all the left right steering movement.

I'm but unfortunately I donated my flag to the desert sand during my last drive with @Wrangeld and I didn't get time to replace it. If you can place me at the extreme back and no flag is no issue I can join.

@Junaid120120

congrats @Archibald Jurdi. See you soon in the drives.

congrats @Karim Allam. Well deserved promotion after watching you drive from behind for the last drive with @Wrangeld, @Chaitanya D & @Kailas. See you soon in future drives.

congrats @syed salman raza. Drive with you soon

It was just pulling the legs of @Chaitanya D and @Kailas for doing the shovelling part and helping me out. Once again thanks for the lesson.

congrats @Lorenzo Candelpergher

congrats @Melenany. See you soon

@Chaitanya D at least I understood you should always carry a good shovel.

THE DRIVE WITH A BANG Thank you @Wrangeld, @Chaitanya D . @Kailas for organizing such an exhilarating drive. Started off with a bang. The desert wanted an offering from me for all the enjoyment he has given me for the drives with @Carnity. The way the offering was taken reminds me of how unforgiving the desert is if we make a mistake. I was watching @Karim Allam who was ahead of me assessing his driving habits - how he accelerates, how he slows down and brakes so that I can adjust my driving styles accordingly to suit the driver's driving ahead of me to escape unnecessary refusals which may end up in a stuck. The ditch caught me by surprise - I literally jumped up from the seat even though belted to the seat and my head hit the roof upholstery with a thud. My spectacles flew off my face and under the shock of the jump didn't notice I was driving for almost a km without them. I had to radio the convoy to stop so that I can finally find them and wear. My worst fears about magnetic mounts had been answered when @Mahmoud Hamzawy announced he had been following me and my flag is missing. The only way to secure anything during a desert drive is only a proper fixture by a weld or secured by nuts & bolts. The magnetic mount was very convenient though as I could put the flag or remove them in a flash. Very valuable lesson learned from @Wrangeld, @Chaitanya D & @Kailas for crawl self recovery method during an almost impossible stuck with 1 wheel pointing up to the sky. When @Chaitanya D suggested to pull me out @Wrangeld promptly over ruled the method and said to shovel me out. @Chaitanya D's and @Kailas faces were down thinking about the physical labor and time to recover a car like this. @Wrangeld promptly declined the easy method to my dismay as he was intent upon teaching me the blip blip, left right steering and crawl out method even if it meant losing some precious time so that me and others would learn. THANK YOU @Wrangeld. The parting sentence at the end of the ordeal as I slowly crawled out from the seemingly impossible stuck from @Wrangeld was now do you realize the best friend of an off roader is a 20 AED shovel. Experience counts for sure and it proved he knew all along that my X could be recovered by a mere shovel and brute physical force. Thank you @Chaitanya D & @Kailas and sorry for the unintended exercise you had to do because of my stuck. The drive was exciting when the sun went down and I could capture some of the parting shots of the sun thanks to someone else in the convoy having a refusal. Hope everybody liked the pictures posted earlier. I intentionally enhanced the color and the clarity so that the overall effect is that of a painting. I never intended to give it a photo look. THE NIGHT DRIVE. I was really apprehensive about joining the drive as I had only stock headlights and was unsure if I can really see in the desert when the sun goes down. @Chaitanya D encouraged me during the weekday short drive that its ok and I should be able to manage. The last fewbie + drive with @Foxtrot Oscar which ended up at 8pm in almost similar situations gave me confidence I can with stock headlights. Don't know if everybody will like my comment but all the fancy lights fixed in other cars I saw is not good as the stock headlights. I did fine with them but I have something else in my mind to enhance night vision and hopefully will fix on my car soon. Nothing fancy but little vintage. When I was a teenager I used to ride Bullets, RD 350's and Yezdi 350 and their single headlight was like a sun during night rides and the single headlamp is all what I needed to ride all night. I have asked my friends to source the same headlight and ship it to me here with the light reflector of LUCAS (its a glass reflector and will not melt) along with 100/90 W bulbs. THE EXPERIENCE As all men are not same so are all the marshals. Every time it was a different experience. @Frederic's style is different from @Rahimdad's. @Gaurav's is different from @Chaitanya D. @Wrangeld is totally different from @Ale Vallecchi. @Vanessa8580 is different from @Foxtrot Oscar. The drive with @sertac to big red was a very good experience. Is one above the other? Not at all. We learn different styles from different marshals. Every drive with @Carnity was an experience and confidence booster to take the 4 X 4 out into the desert. I hope 1 day I can take the car out alone with a couple of shovels and friends with me thanks to the famous sentence - In the desert your best friend is a 20 AED shovel. THANK YOU EVERYBODY FOR THE WONDERFUL DRIVE.

Please waitlist me @Foxtrot Oscar

MORNING FOGGIE DRIVE It was indeed a morning drive in the midst of fog - to reach the drive venue and at the start of the drive. It was nice to see fellow co drivers all lined up, deflated, Off road flags up and ready with the walkie talkie. The fog and lots of drives by other clubs in the area added to the confusion. @Foxtrot Oscar made a wise decision to leave the crowd and lead us to another area of the desert so that we don't het mixed up with other clubs and contribute more to the chaos. Once we left. our sweep @Melenany kept reminding us that some other club members had started to follow us in the confusion of the fog. Once they found out they are following the wrong team they exited and till now I wonder what happened to them. Did they reach their team or did they roam around aimlessly in the desert among the dunes searching for their team and finally got stuck somewhere in the soft sand? 🤥 The drive started on very soft sand but mostly everybody did good. Refusals and stucks didn't dominate much even though there were a few which was minor and didn't hold the convoy for long. 1st time after joining carnity I witnessed how a pop out is managed thanks to @Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader and the POP OUT. Even though it looked horrible it was tackled well under the guidance of the wonder woman - @Foxtrot Oscar. @Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader told me its his 3rd pop out and and may soon overtake @Gauravin this item sports and become the king soon. Don't think you don't have competition @Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader as I'm just behind you with 2 under my belt. Thankfully it didn't look as horrible as yours as the tire didn't separate from the rim as yours did. The drive took us through some camel kingdom and thankfully someone in the convoy favored the photographer in me by a short refusal. The camels looked at us with curiosity as if why in this world all these humans are invading their space which they are comfortably occupying and why should the humans even come in a forsaken place with their loud machines. The drive came to a close at 12 very smoothly and after inflation I proceeded to the next drive of the day with @Wrangeld which is another story where he taught me the blip blip, steering left right, some hard core shovelling by @Chaitanya D & @Kailas to make me eventually crawl out of the nice hole I dug myself in. That's a story to be continued in the other afternoon drive.