Forgive us our trespasses

Some of the people I live with have a queasy feeling about any sort of trespassing, something related to having spent childhood on a farm and thus learning from birth to respect other people’s fence-lines.

I have no such feelings myself, and welcome every chance to trespass that comes up, having a well-practised “oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed in here” defence in my hip pocket.

While I generally defer to the hesitant when in group situations, the presence of the Explorer of the Seas on the wharf in Charlottetown over the weekend was too good a prospect to pass up, and so [[Olle]], [[Catherine]], [[Oliver]] and I headed into uncharted waters of the newly-rebranded Historic Charlottetown Seaport to see what we could see.

To my surprise, our access to the Seaport was not restricted at all: we walked right in to the “fenced” area of the wharf, and there were no signs or guards or other restrictions to suggest we weren’t welcome. We walked into the old marine shed and down into the collection of souvenir sellers, tour hawkers and information vendors at the end of the building. It was only here that we were cut off by two private security guards who were checking IDs of passengers and crew before letting them out the back door and onto the ship.

This is all to suggest that if you’re around town on a day when a super-ship is in port and want to grab a closer look, you can walk down to the wharf and get a very close look without fear of arrest or being called out for non-touristic trespass.