You meet some great folks at on the dock

[Ernie]

I’ve been cruising with Daisy in Canada this week. After a mind blowing visit to Princess Louisa, we were catching our breath at the boat basin in Nanaimo. Spent the night there and when we were prepping to leave this morning a friendly, young man of 83 stopped to admire our R23. All of us are used to this with our Rangers, but this encounter was special. The gentleman that stopped to chat and compliment Daisy as a fine little cruiser had built over 300 trawlers himself. He grew up in Pender Harbor and had crafted distinctive,fast and elegant trawlers for these waters for the past half century. I have admired Farrell trawlers on the water, and was shocked and honored to meet the legendary Barrie Farrell this morning as he did his dock walk. He told me a bit of his story and mentioned he’d recently published a book titled “Boats in My Blood”. I had to leave to catch Dodd Narrows or I could have learned so much more from him. He helped carry carry some garbage up to the dumpster, and gave me an autographed copy of this book. Look for it at the book store, it’s a great history of boat building and life on the waters that so many of us love. (Good tales of the history of Chatterbox Falls, and his friend Mac, who gifted us with that special place)
Fun to have our tugs meet the approval of a builder who thinks most manufacturers “are having a contest to see who can build the ugliest boat”