There’s only one answer to every cruising question you could possibly ask.

It depends.

Okay, I exaggerate a tiny bit. I can think of 1 cruising question that has a definite answer. Question: What do you need to go cruising? Answer: You need a boat and some water. The rest? It depends!

Sure, there will be follow up extensions to this, but “It depends” is a fabulous start to almost every answer to any cruising question you could think of.

It’s not a smartass response. It’s a recognition that every single boat, circumstance, and cruiser is unique. “It depends” can be followed with questions designed to make you think about your particular situation, or it can be followed with examples that illuminate why the person answering chose what they did.

The fact is that what’s best for me might not be best for you. Your boat might be a 20 foot daysailor or a 50 foot motorsailor. The anchor we chose, the chain we carry designed for the deep anchorages we’re hoping to explore - those circumstances might not be yours.

I’ve said something like this often on this blog, but I realized I’ve never come out and said it point blank. In this day and age of Google, we all like to find perfect answers to our questions - and talking about cruising is no different. It’s so tempting to want to rely on other people. This might not be you, which is great. Carry on.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t ask questions, or look for answers from other people about your questions. But if an answer begins with “the best thing ever for xxx is yyy” or “this is the ONLY way to do zzz” you might want to take it with a grain of salt. It can be instructive to start even asking questions that invite more questions: rather than “What’s the best anchor” go with “if you had a boat xxx long and wanted to cruise xxx way, what anchor might you look at and why?”

We’re all used to being able to find THE ANSWER with a few words typed into a search bar. No mess, no fuss, just some answer from some random stranger (or a bot) whose advice we tend to blindly follow. The thing with cruising is that there’s a bit more at stake. Your boat, your precious time, maybe even your life.

So if you ask me a question about cruising and my first response is “it depends”, don’t get mad. Start listening to the questions and really thinking about what works for you.

Start trusting yourself with the answers. How successful your cruise is really depends on you.