#sailing #sail #sailinglife #ocean #sailboat #saillife

Our last hurrah in STX before we make the long passage south and leave our friends for hurricane season in Grenada.

To get there we sail from St. Thomas in a Sahara dust storm. With heavy winds, we sail with the genoa only and keep the mainsail in its stack pack to keep red dust from getting it dirty.

We also check out a fort and take some cool video shots of Fredriksted and the pier with the DJI Mavic Pro drone.

We spent time exploring the island by car (van life style road trip rental car off-roading) to get the view from the top.

We fully immerse ourselves in the rain forest from its highest peak of 1160 ft and in the sea 100 feet below the water scuba diving. Your standard travel vlog youtube channel type stuff.

Before we left we wanted to go for one last sail with some of the great people we met. We headed out for a sunset and evening sail to the south side of St. Croix with our friends Jake and David (Blog: https://www.texastoochile.blogspot.com Youtube : dww0013)

We had a blast, and got a little funny, ending the night sailing under the blue spreader lights and anchoring in the dark.

The post [Ep. 27] WE FOUND IT! :-) – Sailing with Friends in the Virgin Islands appeared first on Sailing Sweet Ruca.

We race against Sahara dust storms to St. Thomas to install new solar panels, replace the windlass (it doesn’t go as planned), and do a thorough rig inspection before the planned offshore passage to Grenada for hurricane season.

#sailing #saillife #boatlife #travelvlog

The post [Ep. 26] Holes in our Boat! Fixing a 20 Year Old Boat While Cruising. appeared first on Sailing Sweet Ruca.

We dive Rainbow Reef and the Northwind Tug on the west end of St. Croix, USVI. We dropped into the crystal clear blue waters off the stern of our 46′ Sailboat “Sweet Ruca” to explore the waters around St. Croix. This video is two dives put together into one movie. The first part is Rainbow Reef. It is located in approximately 40 feet of water just a few hundred yards off the coast. Home to some very amazing coral, we see parrot fish, trumpet fish, sea turtles, and more. In the second half of the video we explore the Northwind Tugboat wreck. It is part of a group of shallow wrecks called the Shallow Wrecks at Butler Bay. We hop directly off the back of the sailboat and have to navigate in the current 300 yards or more and find the wreck in open water. It was worth the hunt. Located in about 55 feet of water, at 75 feet long, the Northwind was stripped and sunk in 1986 as an artificial reef. We see some very bright coral, hawksbill turtles, lionfish, blue tangs, and more. #scubadiving #diving #scuba #underwater #underwaterphotography #stcroix #usvi #stx #padi #ocean #dive #wreck #shipwreck #scubadiver #uwphotography #sea #scubadive #underwaterworld #photography #diver #travel #nature #marinelife #buceo #paditv #girlsthatscuba #underwaterphoto #underwaterlife #uwphoto #scubalife #adventure #sealife #fish #sailingsweetruca #sailing

The post Scuba Diving: Rainbow Reef and Northwind Tug Wreck in St. Croix USVI – Sailing Sweet Ruca appeared first on Sailing Sweet Ruca.