I am solo- sailing the world with my cat, Mako! I've had a lifelong dream of sailing around the world since I was in middle school; after college I bought a 1993' Beneteau Oceanis 510. My first few years were spent gaining confidence in single-handling and fixing up my 30-year-old boat.. as of now I have crossed the Pacific ocean single-handed and continuing west! I appreciate you being here and please subscribe to join in on the adventures to come!
Lauren's aft head had seals replaced a couple of times and still was not working properly. Rather than continuing to chase individual seal failures, she decided to replace the entire assembly. The result: two out of three heads on the boat
On the master head, Lauren replaced the pump assembly but the toilet still was not working correctly. Her suspicion is that the hose itself has too much calcium buildup inside it, meaning the new pump is fighting against a restricted line.
When Lauren picked up her sail from the sail shop, the woman there and her assistant offered to help carry it back to the boat, recognizing that getting a sail aboard solo is not easy. That kind of assistance from a marina or sail loft can
Lauren tried to operate a sea cock ball valve, and while the handle itself moved fine, water kept gushing out of the impeller opening at a rate that made continuing unsafe. Rather than risk more water flooding into the boat, she made the ca
After getting back to the boat, Lauren faced a string of jobs that, taken together, just sucked the life right out of her. That kind of exhausting day is pretty normal when you return from time away and have a long list of tasks waiting. Th
For a raw water pump impeller service, the episode shows three items you need to have ready: a replacement rubber impeller sized for your pump, assorted rubber O-rings, and a small packet of silicone impeller lubricant. The lubricant makes
Lauren Landers Sailing recommends a compact combination wrench set where one end is a standard open wrench and the other end has a ratcheting socket. The original motivation was impeller replacement work, where access is tight and a full so
Before mounting the new Nanni fuel filter, the episode shows pouring clean diesel fuel directly into the filter canister. The purpose of this step is to prevent airlocks in the injection system. Installing a dry filter can introduce air int
During the engine maintenance portion of the episode, two Nanni Genuine Parts filters are shown side by side. The oil filter part number is 970603003 and the fuel filter part number is 970313291. Having the exact part numbers makes reorderi
Printify offers an optional paid tier called Printify Premium that reduces your product base costs by up to 20%. You pay either a monthly or annual fee to access it. Lauren Landers Sailing notes that this tier is completely optional. If you
Lauren Landers Sailing shares this print-on-demand approach specifically for people who are already out cruising or planning to be, and who need a small, flexible income stream. The goal is not necessarily a full-time business. It can simpl
A common misconception is that you need an established brand before selling print-on-demand merchandise. Lauren Landers Sailing makes the distinction clearly: you do not need a brand, but you do want a niche. Her niche is sailing, and most
The workflow is straightforward: design your product in a platform like Canva (or hire someone through Fiverr), then upload the design to Printify. Inside Printify, choose your product from a catalog of over 1,300 items including coffee mug
The Odyssey Festival is highlighted by Lauren Landers Sailing as an excellent way to get involved in the sailing world. It offers the chance to learn how to sail, meet like-minded people, and connect with the broader sailing community all i
The process Lauren Landers Sailing demonstrates is straightforward. First, go to Canva and search for a design theme, for example Christmas, and pick or customize a design. Second, go to the Printify catalog and select a product such as a t
Lauren Landers Sailing has used Printify for print-on-demand merchandise for four years as a source of supplemental income. The key advantage is the near-zero upfront cost: you are not charged for a product until an order is placed, so ther
Funding the sailing life comes from several sources. YouTube is a major one, driven by ad revenue, crowdfunding, and viewer support through Patreon. Lauren Landers Sailing saved money from high school and college jobs, including working at
Two platforms stand out for getting connected to the sailing community: Facebook groups and Sail-co. Both are great for finding people who are looking for crew, people who want to teach, and people who simply want company on board. Lauren L
Almost everything Lauren Landers Sailing has learned has come from things breaking on the boat. There is no way to truly prepare for the sailing lifestyle without actually living it. That said, you can get a head start by taking ASA courses
Lauren Landers Sailing says she barely knew how to use a screwdriver before getting onto a boat and was scared to touch a 12-volt, 16-gauge wire even with the breaker off. Her message to people who want this lifestyle but lack confidence: j
Lauren Landers Sailing was not mechanically inclined when she started liveaboard sailing. During the sea trial, the original engine threw a rod. The previous owner chose to rebuild, but Lauren chose to buy a new engine, which was shipped to
Lauren Landers Sailing tries to do engine maintenance about once a year, typically when she first returns to the boat. The routine includes replacing the engine oil and using the easy engine access panel on her boat. She treats it as a way
Lauren Landers Sailing acknowledged she was not feeling naturally motivated but was making herself push through boat projects anyway. Her reasoning: once the fun and social side of sailing life picks back up, it becomes much harder to focus
Lauren Landers Sailing reflected that the day was one of the first in a long time where every project went successfully. She swapped the old accumulator tank for the new one, which came off more easily than expected given how long the fitti
Once the new accumulator tank was connected, Lauren linked it to the water tank, water pump, and manifold, then turned on the water pressure to listen for leaks. She also turned off the water maker so she could hear more clearly. The result
Lauren Landers Sailing removed a heavily rusted Groco brand pressurized water accumulator tank from the bilge. The exterior showed serious oxidation after years of service. She replaced it with a new white Groco pressure storage tank, fitti
During a water maker reassembly, Lauren Landers Sailing found that one of the SeaFrost fittings stayed seated well but the other kept working its way loose. The connection between the two parts of the fitting struggled to stay together, whi
After working through yet another Sea Frost failure, Lauren Landers Sailing gave an honest assessment: she does not recommend Sea Frost. This is not because the company does not work with her, but because their customer service has been dif
After inserting the 25-amp fuse and powering up, the compressor on Lauren Landers Sailing's boat started running without blowing the fuse. The system came back to life. The fan was working, the display was functional once the HDMI cable was
MembersRather than fully reassembling the refrigeration unit before knowing whether it works, Lauren Landers Sailing used a simple staged test. She plugged the control board into the compressor, connected just the negative and positive leads, then
MembersAfter attempting to bypass the Sea Frost control board and even swapping in a cleaned-up older unit, Lauren Landers Sailing found that the 25-amp fuse kept blowing. Many viewers had commented suggesting the compressor itself was the culprit
MembersThe Sea Frost refrigeration system on Lauren Landers Sailing's boat uses a printed circuit board (PCB) control unit with terminal labels for positive, negative, fan, and compressor connections, along with an RJ/HDMI cable for the display. T
Just before Lauren Landers Sailing left the boat, two significant problems emerged. The boat took on water through the shaft seal, and separately, the freezer stopped working. Both issues needed to be resolved before heading back out on the
When Lauren Landers Sailing flew back to the boat after time away, the excitement of reuniting with the boat (and Mo) came hand-in-hand with a substantial list of tasks to sort out before the sails could even come out. These included collec
In Lauren Landers Sailing's experience in this area, blacktip sharks are the most frequently seen species and are found mostly in the lagoons. Gray reef sharks come in second and tend to appear on the walls and outside the passes, particula
Lauren Landers Sailing argues that the more aware and knowledgeable you are about sharks, the less you fear them, and that this knowledge is what actually keeps you safe. She is not reckless about it: she respects sharks, avoids conditions
Based on roughly 100 to 200 dives in the area, Lauren Landers Sailing and her diving partner Tara found that great hammerheads tend to be smart and keep their distance, while tiger sharks are more curious, especially if something large and
Lauren Landers Sailing explains that she avoids murky water specifically because sharks rely on visibility to identify what is in front of them. In low-visibility conditions, a shark cannot tell whether you are a threat or prey, which is wh
Sharks can be conditioned to associate specific sounds or events with food. A spear gun going off is one example: over time, sharks learn that sound means an injured fish is nearby. Lauren Landers Sailing draws a parallel to the Bahamas, wh
Lauren Landers Sailing describes sharks as "the white blood cells of the ocean" because they clean up dying and weak animals rather than hunting perfectly healthy prey. If sharks are present around a reef, it is a sign the reef is healthy,
When you're spearfishing, sharks are attracted less by blood and more by the vibration and movement of the injured fish. A speared fish signals weakness, and sharks are highly opportunistic, preferring to target what is already weak or dyin
During a day of snorkeling, attempted spearing, and watching a hammerhead feed from the drone, Ian and Tara came across a shark tangled in the nets of a fish trap. The shark had already died in the net, so Ian pulled it out of the water so
MembersIn one episode alone, the crew encountered blacktip reef sharks, gray reef sharks, great hammerheads, tiger sharks, and oceanic blacktips. Lauren explains that each species has its own characteristics. Blacktip reef sharks, with their very
Lauren's comfort in the water with sharks is not accidental. She grew up visiting the Bahamas every year, which she describes as very sharky. When she went to college in Florida, she began working on a shark diving boat off the Florida coas
Lauren pushes back on common fears about sharks. Sharks are not mindless creatures that just eat whatever is in front of them. They are actually one of the smartest animals she has ever been in the water with. In fact, it is common to strug
After days of searching at the atoll, the crew finally achieved their goal. Lauren explains: "We probably dove that pass 50 to 100 times to find this one tiger shark. So, we did it." The sighting was brief but thrilling. Lauren estimated th
After arriving at a remote atoll, a small motu (islet) became the gathering point for a group of five buddy boats almost immediately. Despite its size, it had everything needed: soft sand for spike ball, a small river, and plenty of driftwo
When using a drone to actively hunt for wildlife, the approach is fundamentally different from shooting polished footage for a YouTube channel. In search mode, Lauren Landers Sailing is not controlling movements for cinematic effect; the pr
During a wildlife search flight, Lauren Landers Sailing keeps an eye on both altitude and battery level simultaneously. At 40 metres (about 120 to 130 feet) the drone still provides a useful overview, but for spotting smaller species like b
Spending extended time anchored or moored in a single location builds a mental map of what lives there and where. Lauren Landers Sailing notes that once you know an area well, you can predict that a particular bait ball will be in its usual
A large, dense bait ball of schooling fish visible from a drone is also a place to spot sharks feeding. From altitude, the sharks appear as small dark shapes darting around inside or near the bait ball, noticeably bigger than individual fis
When scanning for marine wildlife from a drone, Lauren Landers Sailing looks for a small dark spot that is moving. The key to telling a shark apart from a large Napoleon wrasse comes down to body shape and movement: a Napoleon wrasse is thi
To bring viewers into the shark-finding process more directly, Lauren Landers Sailing decided to record the drone screen in real time rather than rely solely on voiceover after the fact. The trade-off is reduced battery life, since recordin
During a session of three drifts, Lauren Landers Sailing spotted a large hammerhead shark, something she had not seen in some time. The sighting lasted only about half a second, just long enough to barely catch a glimpse of its head. She wa
Lauren Landers Sailing explicitly cautions that she does not recommend flying a drone to search for sharks unless you are experienced. Flying over open water introduces challenges beyond basic piloting. Signal can drop when the drone moves
From the drone, Lauren Landers Sailing looks for a large, dark spot that is moving. A tiger shark can be distinguished from other species nearby by its more square, broader head, unlike the oceanic blacktip which has a pointier nose. The ot
Every day at a specific time, Lauren launches the drone multiple times to search for a tiger shark in the area. The process involves flying over the water and scanning for a large dark spot that is moving. She has flown the area so many tim
The pass at Tikehau already feels exceptionally full of life compared to other passes in the area, but there is a specific spot within it where tiger sharks appear, and they only show up reliably on a certain tide. Lauren had been launching
After rewiring her flexible solar panels and confirming voltage was coming through again, Lauren noted that she had installed those BougeRV panels about a year and two or three months earlier. Her verdict after that time: they are very effi
Lauren noticed her boat was not bringing in as much power and traced it to a wiring problem with one of her solar panels. She also suspected that two of her older hard panels had gone bad. The core practical problem she ran into: you cannot
Lauren has been deliberately taking one full day off work each week, and by the time of this video she had done it three Sundays in a row. On those days, only emergency boat jobs are allowed. No computer work, no editing photos even though
After a passage and then being alone in her own space again, Lauren noticed she just crashed. She had seen this pattern before with charters in a big way: it does not matter who is on your boat, when someone leaves, you tend to collapse a b
Pulling into what would be their last shared atoll, Lauren Landers Sailing and her buddy boats Isla, Nanuka, and Matahari arrived filled with excitement, curiosity, and a bit of dread. Some of those friendships had been formed years earlier
The morning after anchoring, several boats in the group dive the bommies in the area. These are patches of coral that rise from 70 to 100 feet below the surface up to the waterline. Lauren Landers Sailing notes that a lot of the coral was o
Snorkeling in a small creek just in front of the boat, Lauren Landers Sailing finds small coral heads and strikingly beautiful blue giant clams. The observation leads to a broader reflection: after years of knowing Caribbean fish and marine
After about an hour to an hour and a half of navigation through the atoll, Lauren Landers Sailing reaches the anchorage at Chuimodus. There are roughly 15 boats anchored there. The water is a little stirred up on arrival but the setting is
After completing the pass entry, Lauren reflects that the conditions were relatively flat, which made for a good first experience. The key takeaway is that if the waves had been bigger, waiting for them to settle would have been the right c
MembersAfter clearing the pass, Lauren Landers Sailing follows a Navionics navigation track that another boat had recently shared. The GPS vessel icon moves along a charted pink route line plotted carefully between shallow coral reef formations an
MembersWhen entering an atoll pass in the South Pacific, Lauren Landers Sailing uses a multi-screen navigation setup to stay safe. A smartphone running the Navionics charting app shows depth soundings and a planned pink route line, while an iPad d
MembersApproaching the pass, Lauren Landers Sailing paused to assess a stretch of disturbed, raging water ahead. Rather than going straight through the worst of it, she identified that by tucking up close to one side of the current they could like
As Lauren Landers Sailing closed within range of the atoll, she reefed her jib intentionally to reduce boat speed. She was on track to arrive too early, and entering a reef pass at the wrong time, before the light is good or the current is
Lauren Landers Sailing made a deliberate choice not to fish during this particular offshore passage. Her reasoning was practical: anything she hooked out there would almost certainly be very large, a big tuna for example, and dealing with l
Lauren Landers Sailing notes that short passages can be surprisingly tiring because you never really settle into a good sleep rhythm. On a longer passage there is time to find a routine, but on a quick two or three day sail the body does no
During this passage, Lauren Landers Sailing was seeing 8 to 12 knots of wind, giving boat speeds of around 4 to 5.5 knots. While 4 knots is a little slower than ideal, the wind was on the stern and the waves were behind the boat, making for
Lauren Landers Sailing tries to meal prep even for passages of just a couple of days. With limited options at the grocery store before this particular passage, she dug through her freezer and made do with what she had. She turned frozen car
BetterHelp sponsors this episode of Lauren Landers Sailing. The platform requires only a questionnaire to get started, then matches users to a therapist within days, with some matches happening in as little as 48 hours. A standout feature i
Lauren Landers Sailing shares that even while living in a beautiful location and pursuing a dream lifestyle, everyone goes through lows. She describes personal experiences of burnout so severe she struggled to make a grocery list, and pre-P
Even with sunshine, flat water, and a great cape index, Lauren Landers Sailing encounters a squall mid-passage. Based on past experience with similar squalls, she decides not to trust it and rolls in the jib proactively, hoping the event wi
With wind averaging 10 to 13 knots and the engine on for roughly an hour while sheltered by nearby islands, Lauren Landers Sailing works through arrival math in real time. At 6 knots average, the 420-mile passage takes just under three days
Lauren Landers Sailing noticed that the hydro vane has been causing wear and tear on the dinghy even when it is tied down and ratcheted. To address this, she is testing different positions on the boat to find where the dinghy rubs less and
Lauren Landers Sailing leaves the Maresus anchorage on a clear, calm morning. The water is crystal clear, the anchor is easy to raise with no wind inside the anchorage, and the plan is a 420-mile offshore passage. Low tide at the destinatio
Underwater footage from Mora shows the anchor setup in detail. The galvanized anchor chain runs down from the bow to the sandy bottom, and a rope snubber with a protective chafe sleeve connects to the chain to absorb load and reduce shock o
Before leaving Tahiti, Lauren Landers Sailing wants the battery bank charged to 100% and held there long enough for the batteries to equalize properly. Once they are equalized, the plan is to run the watermaker. Because that sequence depend
After the vet appointments are sorted, the immediate priority is getting the hydrovane back together. That means sourcing the correct bolts to reassemble it. Once that is done, the plan is to wait for a suitable weather window and then head
The biosecurity requirement for bringing a cat into French Polynesia involves a strict 130-day parasite treatment protocol before departure. In Mo's case, the vet in Panama missed one of the required parasite treatments during that window.
Anchored at Mora in about 8 feet of water, right on the edge of a drop-off that falls to roughly 30 feet, Lauren Landers Sailing describes the spot as her favorite water in the world. Waves break on the outer reef while the anchorage stays
MembersLauren Landers Sailing describes one of the scariest anchoring experiences of her sailing life, arriving at Moorea just as a squall built from 20-25 knots to 35-40 knots. She was already trying to drop the hook before the squall hit, but wh
For context on how much water a solo sailor actually consumes, Lauren Landers Sailing shares detailed numbers from her Pacific crossing and subsequent time in French Polynesia. During the entire ocean crossing she ran the watermaker for onl
Lauren Landers Sailing diligently logged engine hours since Panama, recording each time fuel was added and how much, as well as time spent at idle versus cruising speed. That data lets you build a reasonably accurate picture of how much die
Hand-stitching heavy sail cloth and luff tape with a needle and thread is possible for very minor work, but some repairs simply require a sewing machine to hold properly. Lauren Landers Sailing attempted a hand-sew fix at anchor and found t
When there is not enough wind and the boat is sailing downwind, the sail flops around with no steady pressure to keep it set. That flopping motion can work the luff tape loose from the furling foil extrusion, allowing the edge of the sail c
After completing the passage from the previous stop, Lauren Landers Sailing moved to the airport anchorage in Tahiti, roughly seven to eight miles from the first overnight spot. The plan is to stay approximately two weeks: at least one week
MembersOn a calm day at anchor in Tahiti, Lauren traced recent sail damage back to the tack attachment on the roller furler drum. The original shackle was secured with an Allen key screw recessed into the drum, which made it impossible to seize wi
If you arrive in Tahiti with a pet on board, the animal is technically not allowed off the boat until it has been officially checked in with the relevant authorities. Lauren notes that for cats this is not a particularly stressful process,
During the same passage, the pulley block on one of the jib sheet cars sheared off, leaving the car itself still on the deck track. Lauren noted this was not a critical problem: she has spare blocks on board that would work as a replacement
During the passage to Tahiti, a bolt on the Hydrovane's transom bracket snapped, and a second bolt on the inboard side came loose. With very little left securing the unit at the bottom, Lauren stopped using the Hydrovane the morning before
Lauren frames the paperwork burden for sailing internationally with a pet as challenging but entirely doable, provided you research the entry requirements for every country on your route with plenty of lead time. Her rule of thumb is at lea
When Lauren cannot fly Mo home, she needs someone who is both willing to stay aboard the boat and capable of looking after a cat, which is a narrow overlap of skills. She is fortunate to have a friend named Isla nearby who can step in, but
Lauren can fly out of Tahiti with Mo in the cabin, but on the return leg, and essentially everywhere else across the South Pacific including Australia and New Zealand, he would have to travel in cargo. She considers that unacceptable unless
Mo will only eat one type of dry food, which makes provisioning a real logistical challenge. Lauren has flown it in from the United States, shipped it into St. Martin when shipping was possible, and keeps roughly five bags in stock at any g
Every piece here is something Lauren Landers Sailing can talk you through, in their own words.