Different people have different definitions of cruising. To some, it means traveling across oceans into foreign countries for years, maybe circumnavigating the globe. To others, it means touring waters close to home over a summer.

I don't think it much matters what the time frame or geographical scope is. Cruising, I believe, is a state of mind. No, I'm not talking about listening to Jimmy Buffet music while sucking on a rum drink in the cockpit. That can be fun, and it might be part of the lifestyle, but it's not cruising all by itself.

For me, cruising is fundamentally about self-sufficiency. All water vessels are islands when you come right down to it. Everything that a boat and its crew need to survive and operate must be on board. Water, fuel, electricity, food, clothes, hardware--all self contained, whether for a weekend or a decade. The knowledge needed to get from point A to point B--coastal or open water navigation, understanding weather patterns, how to anchor safely, etc.--is necessary. And if a crisis arises, the crew must be prepared to deal with it on their own.

Self-sufficiency touches every aspect of a cruising lifestyle. Getting food, keeping tanks filled, making electricity--those are some of the more obvious elements. Self-sufficiency is required in some other, perhaps not quite so evident, areas. Being on a fixed (or no) income can be a real challenge if you want to stay on the water as long as possible--creative spending and income production may be called for, and that calls for self-sufficiency. Health maintenance is extremely important, and this requires a higher degree of self-sufficiency than required when tied to land.

I think one of the key areas where self-sufficiency is called for is inside one's own head. Boredom is certainly encountered out there--a well-known adage is that cruising is hundreds of hours of non-activity punctuated here and there by minutes of terror. What to do with those hundreds of hours? A self-sufficient cruiser finds pathways through the boredom.

Humility is a big part of cruising. No matter how much preparation is done or how much seafaring knowledge the skipper and crew have, it isn't wise to get complacent. Nature hates hubris. She has a way of kicking us in the butt the moment we think we've got it all under control, and a small fluke can cascade into a major emergency in the blink of an eye.

Prudence, the third component of a cruising state of mind, springs from humility. A lot adventure yarns I've heard from cruisers, the ones that keep listeners riveted while the storyteller talks about a harrowing experience that he or she passed through before getting safely to harbor, are founded on bad judgement. In almost every case where I or another listener asked probing questions, it turned out that the boat was flaunting statistics--making passages in the wrong season or against the prevailing winds. There was always a "good" reason for being on the water against the odds--I am amazed at how often the reason is that some friend or family member is flying in to the destination on a certain date, and the boat had to be there by then. Why would a skipper be so imprudent? Why risk putting the boat and crew in a dicey situation for a reason like that? It happens a lot.

The ocean and the weather can be dangerous, perhaps fatal, and if you have a good grip on that fact, it can't help but make you take pause. We can never be absolutely certain that a passage will be trouble-free, but we can stack the deck on our favor by knowing the best times for travel in a particular part of the globe, making sure that crucial boat systems are in good working order, and watch schedules and other crew responsibilities are designed to avoid fatigue. Discipline is needed too--the discipline to stay in port even though it means missing a planned rendezvous down the line, the discipline to include worst-case scenarios when making passage decisions. Prudence helps us make plans deliberately and with discipline, so that the odds will be on our side.

Self-sufficiency, humility, and prudence--these, for me, are the three characteristics that make a cruiser. Everything stems from these: How you prepare, how you plan your itinerary, how you meet challenges once you are on the water. And it doesn't matter where or for how long you go. As far as I'm concerned, whether you are a permanent resident in the world's largest small village or an occasional visitor, if you are striving for self-sufficiency, taking a humble approach, and exercise prudence in your approach to the lifestyle, you are a cruiser.