The most interesting thing for me about driving in a newbie convoy with Dubai Offroaders is the fact that you get to meet people who are most of the time experiencing desert driving for the first time in their life. This means that I have the opportunity to create the most exciting experience for the drivers and their passengers to make them get hooked on the sport and want to come back again. On this particular Friday, I had the privilege to lead the DO newbie convoy through the majestic, large, rolling dunes of Sweihan.
Marshal Denis kept the convoy in good form and order providing his usual solid support and guidance for the drivers. We had a 10-car convoy, excluding Denis and me, which consisted of three first-timers and seven drivers, which has about two to four drives under their belts.
The day was planned to be a long-day drive, which meant we met for 11:30am and planned to drive until about 6pm just as the sun was setting. A few delays in the beginning did not see us leave the meeting point until noon. Within the first five minutes we had our first pop-out. It was no big deal, we were quickly able to get the tire back on and filled up. Within the next 5 minutes we had our second pop-out. By this point I started to think that our long-day drive was going to be a “long day” in another sense and thought maybe it would be better to just play in the dunes around roadside instead of going deep into the dunes. It was only about 1pm and we still had many hours of daylight ahead of us plus, everyone had driven so far to get to the meeting point, so my thoughts of having a boring day by the roadside quickly diminished and we kept moving following the best line for our convoy.
After a short drive, we came across the fewbie convoy being led by Marshal Joe. It was great to take some time to chit-chat with our friends and hear how their drive was going. After a nice break, we said our goodbyes and headed further into the dunes continuing our drive up towards Sand Mountain and ultimately towards our exit point at Masaken.
When driving in the convoy, it is quite easy and apparent to “feel” how the drivers are doing. In the beginning of the drive we had a slow-and-go rhythm with several second attempts, stucks, pop-outs, etc. After a couple of hours however, these issues really subsided as all the drivers got into their groove. The rhythm became quite enjoyable and fluid. This told me that we were on good pace and that everyone was doing very well. We did get delayed a bit with our detour around the camel race track and then through a couple of farms. I did manage to get my car stuck between two narrow dunes and found myself nicely teetering on my front right and rear left wheels. Thanks to Denis and his methodical physics calculations he was able to drag me out unscathed. After clearing the farms, we were back up in the pristine sea of dunes for which Sweihan is famous and loved. It was approaching mid-afternoon so we decided to stop for an extended break to have some lunch.
After finishing our lunch, we packed up and headed off to finish the remaining 20 kms of our route. We still had about two hours of daylight left so I wanted to crank up the pace in order for us to reach the exit point before sunset. We took a very fluid path cruising in and around many large dunes and valleys. From time to time we had to perch the dunes to cross to the other side but we were able to maintain a strong pace and gain significant ground; within an hour we had covered about 12 kms. The sun was clearly setting at this point and a few stucks had popped in here and there, which caused the pace to slow. By the time the sun fell completely out of the sky we had less than 4 kms to reach our exit point.
So, there we were, it was 6pm, the sun had set, we were in darkness, and we were a convoy of 10 newbies in the middle of the Sweihan dunes. The team had driven very well and the skills had increased considerably since the start of the drive. As I usually do in these situations, I called all the drivers so that we could have a quick brief about night driving. I simply explained, in a reassuring manner, that driving at night is exactly like driving during the day – except you cannot see! These simple jokes seem to always instill a bit of calm through laughter. Every driver and passenger was still in good form and enjoying the day so I knew we would be fine; maybe just a little late for dinner.
We cruised up and down and around and the convoy became separated at one point. We had some nice dips into bowls and learned how to zig-zag our way out of them. The night sky had blanketed an element of blindness on us but every driver did a great job in maintaining their car through the darkened desert tracks. By 8pm we were arriving at our exit point and back on the tarmac. The whole convoy did exceptionally well. We had driven through the Sweihan dunes for over 8 hours with 2.5 of them being at night. We covered 60+ kms and the driving skills of everyone had increased impressively.
Luda did a fantastic job of driving as 2nd lead in only her 2nd drive. Michael and Ahmad with each having their wife and Ahmad with his 8-month old baby son Zein held on strong all afternoon. Neil cruised effortlessly in his white FJ. Vish with his lovely daughter Neha as co-pilot and radio-girl calmly and fluidly navigated their black FJ Extreme with ease. The husband and wife combo of Sasha and Mirela took turns executing precision driving of their Jeep with their young daughter loving every minute of the afternoon. I could not think of any better way to have spent the afternoon than driving through Sweihan with the Dubai Offroaders newbie convoy. Thank you all for the great time and I look forward to seeing everyone on another dune!
Here is the map of our track. You can download the gpx file by clicking the link at the bottom of the map.
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