Saturday Morning Chill’y drive 5 Sep ’15

It going to be my first morning drive …. looking forward

Hi Mustafa,

If you use the google coordinates that Denis gave and put them in google maps it will take you to the location. Then if you click on the pointer icon it will give the GPS coordinates also in the top left. For your ease here they are – N24° 55.298′ E55° 31.130′ 😀

Thank you Duncan for your help :thanks:
See you on Saturday morning
Regards,
Mustafa

Thanks Denis – for unlocking the page… :yesss:

I was very excited to see that there was a morning drive this Saturday – the first for the winter season. 🙂
6.30am meet meant that the drive started as promised a “chilly” exploration drive temperature measuring a surprising pleasant 31C.

About 12 cars met at the meet point with Denis and Asem as the two leads. It was such a popular idea to have a morning drive that Denis was forced to close the drive to drivers with 2 star and below pretty early on.
It was decieded that the convoy would be one convoy but formed of two parts (6 cars each). Denis led the fewbies and Asem led the second half of intermediates – all driving FJ’s 😀 . This gave the intermediates the chance to do some additional dunes.

The terrain was mainly small and technical and soft in places – a pleasure to drive as a change to larger dunes. This however caused some difficulty for some members of the convoy. A number of second attempts and a number of pulls ensured that the drive continued although the terrain didn’t get easier. This was the “exploration” part of the chilly exploration.
At one stage of the drive a quick change of a tire was required on one of the jeeps due to it looking rather shredded but not an issue.

At about 9.30 we were all still keen to continue driving so as we didn’t need to rush back we planned to go in search of larger dunes to make it simpler for the convoy but as we searched the smaller dunes were proving challenging so we kept going and headed towards the exit at Murquab.

The winds from the day before which Friday convoys braved covered all other existing tracks giving the feeling we were out all alone in undiscovered territory.
We saw lots of Gazelles on a number of occasions and some passed just in front of the car… so beautiful!

Once we got to the exit at Murquab we all inflated, I had an issue with one of my tire valve units leaking which meant I had to change the tire. Unfortuantely it meant that I had to remove the locking wheel nut of the spare tire with my key. The key wouldn’t turn surprisingly – the thought that the key I was using was not the original may have been the cause – although it didn’t make sense as i was driving with the same key 😕
The only option at the point was to leave the car, jacked up and take the problem tire to the ADNOC in Faqaa which they quickly fixed – it was then back to Murquab to put it back on. #:-s

So once I got home I checked the original key… same issue – after spraying lots of WD40, waiting and adding more WD40 the locking nut eventually came off – the nut had been clogged with sand and dust. At this point I think its a good idea for all to check if their locking nut of their spare is easily released… had it happen in the desert this may not have been solved so easily as driving to the tire shop.. That was my lesson learnt today. 😮

I would like to thank Asem very much for the help taking me and the tire to Faqaa to get it repaired – really appreciate it – :thanks: so much. O:-)
Thanks very much to Mustapha for the valves – which I will return next time I see you.
Of course thanks to Denis and Asem for making the morning drive possible.

The total trip today from Lisalli to Murquab was 52km, took 4 hrs and was a truly chilly relaxing exploratory drive :D.
See you next week :drive:

Great drive report Phil. You guys clearly had a great time; very exciting!! I wish I could have joined but the wife put her foot down on being in the sand two days in a row. X(

I am going to add a can of WD40 to my equipment bag based on your experience…thank you :thanks:

Matt

good to see the morning drives are back.
i haven’t been out in months!

Hope to see you guys soon.