EVERY WEDNESDAY 5-8pm ON THE MAIN DECK
Cranberry Isles, Maine — Jack Booker
The Boardwalk Restaurant celebrates Lobster Mania on Wednesday evenings during the summer months. All the lobsters served, and those used in the famous Boardwalk Lobster Bisque, are flown in from Maine and Nova Scotia. Every batch of bisque contains 35 lobsters, and during the season the Boardwalk processes 6500 pounds of lobster–the equivalent of 3.25 tons!
At Lobster Mania you will receive a 1 lb. lobster, a bowl of delicious lobster bisque, cole slaw, a roll, and a tasty cookie all for $31.
In early summer 2019, I enjoyed the opportunity to spend four hours with lobstermen who previously supplied The Boardwalk. Captain David Thomas and his crew Paul live on a small island off the coast of Southwest Harbor, Maine, called Little Cranberry Island. The two men are involved in a co-op with several other local fishermen for distribution purposes. They go out around 7:30am and often do not return until 5pm. Their mission–check between 100 and 200 lobster traps every couple hours.
The captain takes the boat to the nearest lobster trap buoy, hooks it, and then reels in the line. As the boat continues toward the next pot, Captain Thomas and Paul pull up the trap, lift out the lobsters, change the bait, and then toss the pot back into the water. Paul measures the lobsters, checks to see if any are pregnant (in which case they are thrown back), and then he places rubber bands on the claws. Captain Thomas and Paul work six months of the year; some co-op members fish into December. Overall, the co-op collects a few hundred tons of lobster each year.
The videos below reveal the lobsterman’s work in living color!