'Too damn cold'

Old Orchard Beach in 1914

“{It’s) the only fault I have with Maine, the water is just too damn cold.’’

— Arthur Griffin, in New England: The Four Seasons (1980)

Editor’s Note: But the Gulf of Maine is now one of the world’s fastest-warming bodies of salt water. Still, the water on the south coast of New England (particularly Buzzards Bay) can be as much as 20 degrees warmer than the Gulf of Maine in the summer.