Johnshaven, Scotland

Johnshaven is a small village located a short drive from Aberdeen. I first heard about Johnshaven from a fellow AWA member who once drove out there to buy lobsters. I always told myself that I will go one of these days and that day finally came. Gerald and I were out at Fowlsheugh, searching for puffins, and after we had enough of looking at the cute little birds, we decided to explore a bit further down the coast.  Our intention was to stop by at Johnshaven, pick up some lobsters and maybe head out towards St. Cyrus for a quick walk or something. However, our plans were changed when we ended up spending a good hour and a half in this small fishing village.

First, pictures of my cute little puffin friends. It was Gerald's first time seeing the puffins so that was exciting.  I sure do love these beautiful birds.

Driving out from Fowlsheugh to Johnshaven, the fields are covered with beautiful rapeseed in burst of bright yellow. So pretty!



Now, on to my lobster adventure. We arrived in Johnshaven and was looking for a fish monger type shop to buy our lobsters at a discount, but couldn't find a store in sight. We walked into the village and only saw little cute houses so decided to come back out towards the harbor. There were creel baskets everywhere so I was sure there had to be someone selling something out here!  The village was dead and we decided that they probably don't sell anything over the weekend so we should head off and come back another day.

On the way out, we decided to stop by the convenience store to get a drink and snack and I ask the checkout guy about these lobsters. He directed me to the blue shed at the end of the street so I made Gerald turn back around to check it out.

This is what we found....

The guys were busy packing away lobsters for shipment to France so we spent a good 30 minutes just talking to the owner and his friend about the lobster business. After all the good ones were packed away, he had two buckets of not so perfect lobsters to sell to me. Some of them had only one claw and others had different size claws, but at $6 a pound, who can complain? We bought £40 worth of the crustaceans and headed home to cook them up! Cooking them was also an adventure in itself. I"ll save that story for another time! If you want lobsters and have a chance to get out to Johnshaven, I suggest you do. It was a fun day. They actually have a fishing festival in August that looks fun.  The guy also told me that they will deliver to ABZ for free! You just have to pick it up from one of their carriers, so that's something to keep in mind.