13 JAN 24 - AUH Faya to Khatim Mid-day Intermediate

[Redbeard]

Met up at Al Faya south of the heavy vehicle inspection center - 24.3614, 54.9613

There were 2 cancellations via website ~90 minutes before meeting time, which meant two drivers were bumped up from waiting list. One of the drivers bumped from wait list was no-show, which I think is fair enough since he likely had not seen the email informing him he had made it into the trip. We had one late arrival, but managed to depart deflation point around 20 minutes after the posted meeting time.

We started out with a total of 6 cars in convoy, planning to explore the area between Al Faya and Khatim/Khazna.

Convoy order:
Mikkel (Exp)
Andrei (Adv)
Sultan (Int)
Oskar (Int)
Ali (Int)
Oleksandr (Adv)

We found a stretch of medium dunes that were a bit technical, but still good fun. Ali got stuck on a crest in his new Dodge Ram, and when attempting to switch to 4L the check engine light came on and car went to 2WD, and we were unable to get it back into 4H/4L. Andrei attempted to clear errors with OBD scanner, but this didn't help. At this point the Ram was in a bowl, so we deflated the tires a bit further and found an easy track out of the dunes and back to the highway. We bid Ali farewell, with a comment that on top of getting this issue diagnosed, he must also arrange proper rear recovery point before joining a trip again.

The convoy of 5 cars proceeded south, mostly covering technical terrain. We made it to Boudthib endurance track, where we took a quick run through the dunes inside the endurance track - this is a good place to BBQ but we concluded not a great place for dune bashing as the area is quite technical.

We ended the trip around 14:20 at the planned inflation point: 24.2698, 55.0028

Thank you all drivers for joining me on this exploration trip. It was interesting to see something different and travel through areas with zero to few tracks for once.
Thank you Andrei for second lead and Oleskandr for sweeping, and Sultan for your expertise in recovering the Ram.