We’ve heard this a couple of times since we’ve been in Canada while Tortuga’s been tied up in a few of the harbors/marinas. We wondered whether the people were fascinated by the fact that it is a boat traveling from the United States or for some other reason. We have not seen that many sailboats in the Canadian waters and big sailboats for that matter. The sailboats we generally see are smaller and local to the area, and likely out for daysails.
So we asked the harbor master in Pictou, and his impression is that people are more intrigued by where the boats come from.
The people we meet in the slips are generally very curious either about the boat and/or about the route that we are taking to get the boat back to Chicago.