Harbors. . .Shops. . .Charms. . .Hotels. . .Lobsters : MAINE ATTRACTIONS: Basking in the waterside joys of two New England coastal towns, from quaint village to gentrified port : Boothbay Harbor’s Old Ways Soothe

My mother, who recently turned 83 and still plays golf twice a week, remembers when local Boothbay Harbor boys would tramp along the old Indian trail that follows the shoreline of Linekin Bay just below her family’s summer home, selling two- and three-pound lobsters for 25 cents each, with a bucket of steamers thrown in to clinch the deal. That was in the late 1920s.

Today, a three-pound lobster at Wotton’s Lobster Pound on Sea Street, where many of the local lobstermen sell their catches, will set you back between $8.50 and $13.50, depending on whether it’s a “shedder” or a “select.” The selects are new-shell lobsters and purportedly have less but sweeter meat. I’ve tried both and the distinction is lost on me, so I opt for the considerably cheaper shedders. In California, a three-pound Maine lobster (they’re the ones with the claws) will cost you $35 to $40, if you can find one that large. By comparison, a restaurant lobster is about 1 1/4 pounds, and in California that can cost you $20 and up.

Much has changed in the 65 years since Mother first started coming to Boothbay Harbor as a teen-ager from Boston, where she grew up. But Boothbay has changed less than you might think; it’s still very much a lobsterman’s working town. These hardy souls are as respected today as they were in the ‘20s when the town’s population would swell fourfold in the summertime, as it still does, and the year-around townspeople were affectionately referred to by summer visitors as “Mainiacs.”

Last August was our family’s third pilgrimage Down East in the last four years, each trip with the avowed purpose that it might be Mother’s last chance to see her beloved Boothbay Harbor. But given her robust health we had a hidden agenda: to splurge on a year’s worth of clothes at 30 cents on the dollar at the factory outlets in enchanting Freeport, gorge ourselves on lobster, steamed clams and lobster rolls, and visually feast on the stunning view from the penthouse suite atop the Tugboat Inn, strategically located on Commercial Street midway between the inner and outer harbors. The Tugboat is a bit worn--the recession has not been kind to the Northeast. But no matter--the suite has two bedrooms, a dining room, living room and full kitchen. At $200 per night (it sleeps 6 people), it’s a bargain.

You can’t fly nonstop from Los Angeles to Portland, the nearest large city to Boothbay. So all in one day we took an early morning flight to Washington, D.C., changed planes and flew on to Portland, where we picked up a rental car and drove one-half hour north to the Harraseeket Inn on the outskirts of Freeport.

The Harraseeket Inn is the quintessential Down East hotel: all white with a wraparound sitting porch, white picket fences and antique-filled public rooms. It was 7:30 p.m. when we arrived, and the restaurant closed at 8--this part of the country is not known for its uproarious night-life--so after checking in we hurried downstairs to enjoy our first lobster dinner of the trip.

The next morning the five of us--Mother and I, my wife Lea Ann, and my sisters, Maidi and Julie--set out early for the discount outlets. Freeport is a classic New England village that has somehow been transformed into a shopper’s paradise without losing its charm. This nirvana for the “shop-till-you-drop” crowd is an eclectic collection of 92 factory outlet stores clustered in a pretty New England setting. It is still a living town, even though many of the stores are located in former homes. Freeport makes every other “shopping mall” I’ve ever been to pale by comparison.

The biggest draw is L.L. Bean (Freeport is the company’s international headquarters, and its store occupies a whole block), but one can also choose from the likes of Bogner, Anne Klein, Calvin Klein, Brooks Brothers, Hickey-Freeman, Laura Ashley, Ralph Lauren, London Fog, Maidenform, Nautica, Nike, Reebok, and Timberland--and everything in between. And the prices are amazing. For example: I became permanently separated from a brand new $235 (on sale) leather and canvas carry-on bag on a business trip to New York the previous June. That exact bag was replaced at the American Tourister outlet for $79.

But a note of caution: Plan well in advance what you intend to buy. My sister Maidi, who failed to make such a list, got caught up in the euphoria of the moment and, much to her amazement, maxed out her Visa card before noon.

We left for Boothbay after lunch, stuffed on lobster rolls--sort of a hot dog with lobster meat--from one of the popular street vendors that proliferate in Freeport in the summer.

The 1 1/2-hour drive northeast from Portland to Boothbay on U.S. 1 takes you through Brunswick to Wiscasset, where you turn south on Maine 27. Every time I arrive at the narrow road by which you enter Boothbay, I recall a line from a brochure celebrating Boothbay Harbor’s 50th anniversary of incorporation in 1939: “There is only one Boothbay Harbor in the United States. There are dozens of Bostons and a half a dozen New Yorks, but you can write a letter to a friend in Boothbay Harbor, United States, without fear of its going astray.” That pretty well sums up how the natives feel about Boothbay Harbor today.

The town rings the inner harbor, sheltered from the winter storms that prowl the rugged Maine coast and somewhat reminiscent of Cabot Cove, the fictional lobstering village from which Angela Lansbury solves crimes on telelvision’s “Murder, She Wrote.”

From May to October, according to a former Southern California neighbor who now is a year-round Boothbay Harbor resident, you will encounter four types of people here: the tourists (our category); the “summer people,” which includes the Florida/Boothbay people (this group spends summers in Boothbay and winters in Florida); the “year-round summer people” (referred to as the PFA’s, or People From Away; if you weren’t born in Boothbay you can never be called a local); and the “locals,” i.e., the natives. The latter three groups never lose sight of the fact that this town and the surrounding environment are more important in the long run than all the tourists in the world, and they are not afraid to tell you so.

There are many hotel choices in Boothbay, including the very expensive but wonderfully situated Spruce Point Inn. Bed and breakfasts abound, as well. But we always choose the third-floor penthouse atop the Tugboat Inn because of its view of the marina, the inner and outer harbors, the spired Catholic church and the constantly changing panorama of harbor activity, all of which can be seen from the balcony that surrounds the suite. One could come to Boothbay Harbor and simply sit on that balcony and do nothing but read, look up periodically to check the harbor action, level of the tides and quality of light, eat steamed clams and lobsters, and have a successful vacation.

But a sedentary lot we are not. So the first night, after sipping a glass of wine on the balcony, we took the 20-minute walk to the other side of the harbor--using the picturesque footbridge across the inner harbor--to the Lobstermen’s Cooperative restaurant. Here, you pick out your own lobster, order the obligatory steamers and sit at one of the picnic benches on the wharf. The view of the harbor from this side is equally picture-postcard perfect, with wheeling gulls, bobbing lobster buoys and moored sailboats.

But a lobster-and-steamer dinner eaten out every night, even at the no-frills Co-op, can get expensive. And the first-rate, full-service restaurants such as Brown’s, Maxfields, Black Orchid and Tugboat Inn Restaurant will put an even greater dent in your wallet. Accordingly, for us one of the major attractions of the Tugboat Inn penthouse is its full kitchen.

Surprisingly, it lacks a lobster pot, but I borrowed one from the accommodating chef at the adjoining restaurant. My sisters located the bakeries selling Maine blueberry pies, my wife got the ice cream. Our lobster dinner was a snap to prepare “at home,” and came out about one-quarter the cost of eating out. And that view!

We spent our first full day in Boothbay Harbor--during our entire seven-day stay the weather was glorious--once again exploring all the town’s nooks and crannies. We never tire of the Down East experience, from the natives’ curious accent to the incomparable sea-and-pine-tree Maine aroma that constantly engulfs your nostrils.

A good first shopping stop in Boothbay Harbor (assuming you have any money left if you stopped in Freeport) might be the Maine Trading Post, a barn-like structure just down from the Tugboat Inn. It is filled with such Maine crafts as clam hod baskets, handmade garden furniture, hooked rugs and quilts, many of them crafted by the lobstermen and their families during the cold winters.

But for my money the two best buys in Boothbay are authentic wooden buoys and old wooden lobster traps (the latter make unique coffee tables when fitted with glass tops). Lea Ann bought two buoys painted with Santa Claus faces. Both the buoys and traps are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive as the lobstermen move to heavy wire traps and plastic buoys that, though still painted with each lobsterman’s distinct colors, certainly don’t have the charm of the wooden ones.

Don’t begrudge the lobstermen these changes, though. Even though from a tourist’s perspective it takes some of the romance out of the harbor views, lobstering is a tough way to make a living, and metal and plastic last longer. A lobsterman can have $70,000 invested in his boat and equipment alone. Even the newer metal wire traps, which cost about $40, last only a few years, and many buoys and traps are lost when the lines that mark the trap locations are cut loose by passing boat propellers. On a harbor cruise we took two years ago, I was so overwhelmed by the thousands of buoys in the outer harbor, and all the way over to Squirrel Island, that I began counting. I gave up at a mind-numbing 3,000. Get your wooden traps and wooden buoys now.

When you look at a map of the Boothbay Harbor area, which is made up of four fingers of land jutting out into the Atlantic, it becomes obvious that you can’t get directly from here to there as the crow flies. A car is essential for visiting the interesting day-trip destinations, such as Christmas Cove, Pemaquid Point (with its 167-year-old working lighthouse and informative museum), New Harbor (eat lunch on the upper deck at Shaw’s Fish & Lobster Wharf), Ocean Point (where fog for the entire Boothbay region is supposedly “manufactured”) and charming Little Harbor.

But maps and guidebooks are plentiful, and we enjoyed the humorous Boothbay Pocket Map ($2; sold in most gift stores and hotels), which bills itself as “more fun than asking directions.” A proposed first excursion is to East Boothbay, famous for its shipyards (be sure to lunch at Lobsterman’s Wharf, where on Sunday afternoon all four Boothbay summer population categories gather for jazz concerts). Or try the opposite direction toward Southport Island, past the rotting hulls of two schooners in Mill Cove.

It would be a shame to visit the area and not spend one day visiting pristine Monhegan Island. The round-trip fare is $25 and takes 1 1/2 hours on the ferry Balmy Days which leaves Pier 8 in Boothbay Harbor at 9:30 a.m. and returns at 4:15 p.m. (pack a lunch). Passenger service to Monhegan began more than 100 years ago, and not a lot has changed during that period. There is still no electricity service on the small, pine-tree-studded island, and no cars are allowed, but that’s the way the islanders want it. It’s certainly worth taking a day out to visit and go back in time, stepping off the ferry at a little dock and hiking along 17 miles of trails past 150-foot cliffs.

Another interesting day-trip is a visit to the Maine Maritime Museum and Shipyard in nearby Bath, and a tour of the Bath Iron Works, the shipbuilding firm that is Maine’s second-largest employer.

Much closer is Squirrel Island, a half-hour boat trip that leaves Pier 8 three times each morning. This bastion of conservationism also prohibits vehicles--even bicycles. The only telephones here are a few randomly-spaced red public phone booths, although we were told with a wink by the captain of the Balmy Days that cellular phones have been smuggled over, perhaps to keep the summer homes of New York financial moguls connected to offices and stockbrokers.

On the flight back to Los Angeles, Lea Ann and I calculated that if one exercised a high degree of self-control during the year and bought only the absolute clothing essentials, the savings to be had in Freeport were such that a week’s vacation in Boothbay Harbor (air fare plus our share of the rented car and hotel room) would be almost free. Such is the allure of coastal Maine that any form of irrational thinking serves as an excuse to return.

GUIDEBOOK

Orientation for Down East

Getting there: The nearest large airport to the Boothbay Harbor area is in Portland, 60 miles south. USAir, United, Delta, Continental and TWA fly to Portland from LAX, but none are direct flights; most routes involve a change of planes. A 14-day advance-purchase fare is about $440 round trip.

Getting around: There is little public transportation in the area, but all major rental car agencies have outlets at the Portland airport.

Where to stay: You’ll most likely arrive in Portland in the late afternoon. If you pick up a rental car, you can drive to the Harraseekit Inn (162 Main St., Freeport, Me. 04032, 800-342-6423 or 207-865-9377) and spend the next morning shopping in Freeport. A double room runs about $150.

In Boothbay Harbor, the penthouse at the Tugboat Inn (100 Commercial St., 04538, 800-248-BOAT or 207-633-3928) is $200 during the summer peak season; one-bedroom apartments are $145; standard rooms with views are $95.

Others I have tried and recommend are all situated on the water. They include: Rocktide Inn (45 Atlantic Ave., 800-762-8433 or 207-633-4470; $85-$127); Fisherman’s Wharf (40 Commercial St., 800-628-6872 or 207-633-5090; $85 per double to $105-$140 per suite); Lawnmeer Inn, located across a swing bridge on Southport Island (P.O. Box 505, West Boothbay Harbor 04575, 800-633-7645 or 207-633-2544; about $95 per double with view). Priciest is the Spruce Point Inn, a grand old luxury resort, recently renovated (P.O. Box 237, Boothbay Harbor 04538, 800-553-0289 or 207-633-4152; peak season prices for two people, including full breakfast and dinner, are $210 standard, $250 superior and $278 deluxe). (Note: Boothbay hotels lower prices after Labor Day.)

Where to eat: For casual dining al fresco, Lobsterman’s Co-op (owned by area lobstermen) on Atlantic Avenue lets you choose your lobster and place your order for clams. Or if you are in the adjacent Southport area, try Robinson’s Wharf for a similar experience. A bit more formal is Brown’s, also on Atlantic Avenue, the Black Orchid or Andrew’s Harborside on the By Way, and Maxfield’s on Oak Street. More expensive are the Newcastle Inn (one seating, five courses, $33) in nearby Newcastle and the first-rate Osprey Restaurant (good view, large menu).

A must while you are in the area is a Cabbage Island clambake. Capt. Wayne Moore will pick you up about 5 p.m. at Pier 6, take you over to Cabbage Island on his excursion boat Argo and have you back before 11 p.m. Reservations recommended: (207) 633-7200.

Other attractions: In fall, when the Northeast’s famous foliage is in full color, Maine is a prime leaf-gazing spot, but much less crowded than Vermont and other more publicized spots.

A highlight of every June is Windjammer Days, where large old sailing ships congregate in Boothbay Harbor from all over the Maine coast for a weeklong celebration.

For more information: Contact the Boothbay Harbor Region Chamber of Commerce, Boothbay Harbor, Maine 04538, (207) 633-4232.