There are always a million reasons to consider a trip to the coastal towns of Maine. There are numerous country inns filled with charm, small villages with nary a tourist, great Atlantic Ocean views and the best ice auger, and easy connectivity to the glories of New England and the eastern Canadian Provinces.
But this year, the real reason to go, and to go now, is the food, or more precisely the lobsters. As originally reported in the NY Times, local lobster prices in Maine are down by as much as 70% all along Maine’s coast. The Wall Street Journal reports that you can now buy fresh lobster locally for $1.25 per pound in many parts of Maine.
The reason is the unusually warm winter producing warm waters that result in hauls that are three or four times what local fisherman have seen in recent years. Tourists will be the main beneficiaries since the lobsters being caught tend to have softer shells and so can’t be shipped nationwide.
