We met at Al Faya deflation at 06:00 and by ~06:20 everyone had deflated.
I gave the ANIT briefing, following the checklist from Marshals guide.
We had 15 drivers signed up for this trip with 2 no-shows, so after the safety briefing the group was split into a fewbie and an ANIT/Newbie convoy.
This trip report is for the ANIT/Newbie convoy.
Convoy:
Marshal Zak / Expert Mikkel - Lead/second lead, swapping a few times along the way
Tim
Kevin
Anton
Ibrahim
Sunaif
Ghias - Official sweeper
We lined up and did our radio check, and as we were getting ready to head off we got a surprise visit from Mohammed Hunaidi, and we had the pleasure of his company in our ANIT/Newbie convoy as a roaming marshal.
We headed into an area with smaller dunes not far from the highway, moving south/south-west. We found a few straight crests, intending to do these early before it got too hot.
We had a few stucks on the crests, with Ghias doing most of our recoveries.
On our last straight crest, one driver was a bit overeager on the throttle and unfortunately did some damage to his car. We inspected the car and determined the damage was largely cosmetic, and it was safe to continue if the driver was inclined to do so - he was, so we continued our trip heading past the heavy vehicle inspection center and then turning east towards the larger dunes in Al Faya.
We had a few cars get stuck in the soft sand, giving us opportunity to practice self-recovery techniques. As our 9 AM trip end time approached, we headed back toward the highway to conclude our trip.
Thanks again Zak for making this trip happen, thank you Ghias for being an excellent sweeper with constant and clear communication with the trip leader. Thank you to all the drivers and once again welcome to AD4x4, we hope to see you all in the sand again soon!
And a special thank you to Mohammed for joining us today, it was a pleasure to finally meet you
