LooperDrives at Sweihan means earlier than usual alarms times and long drives to the meeting point. But the allure of the tall dunes deflects any hesitation to join these drives.
Fog on the way: As soon as I started from my home I witnessed fog. Perhaps due to city traffic it was slightly mild initially, but as soon as merged with E611 fog fully blanketed the road & the visibility was barely 100-200 ft. I could drive only about 85kmph on the road. Fog increased substantially when I reached E75 that is in Abu Dhabi and started receiving multiple warning messages to inform me that the speed limit is 80kmph. But I could barely maintain 70kmph due to the dense fog and sometimes even less. The drive stated half hour late as some of the members took time to reach the meeting point, but we ended on time.
Crowded meeting point: As soon as the automatic gates near the meeting point were raised I was a bit surprised to see the number of cars coming in for the drive. Seems like the Off-roading season is in full force, and will only increase as more people join the drives. Some of them were blasting their cars. We crossed many on the drive and most are way too reckless in the way they drive in the desert. That is one reason why I like my club which promotes safe driving.
Electronic Issues: The RAM 1500 in our convoy was a top end model and quite a capable car at that. But the entire 4×4 system is electronic an on one time when it had to engage 4Low it refused to go back to 4High. It took few minutes for it to disengage from 4Low. I reckon topped cars that are off-road capable are better used on road than off-road and they tend to be quite unreliable. Also since it is a long wheelbase model it had a lot of scraping at the middle and lost one foot board on the way, that was recovered and will be fixed.
Stats: We drove a total of 53.70 kms and ended at the same spot from where the next day’s drive will start. We spent total of 3:25 hours in the desert of which 2:28 hours was spent driving.
