ROCKLAND — The Maine Lobster Festival is getting started in Rockland, where festival-goers plan to eat hundreds of the state’s beloved arthropods and crown a new sea goddess.

The decades-old festival takes place near the Rockland waterfront and includes steamed lobster, lobster bisque, lobster mac and cheese, lobster rolls, lobster wraps and lobster Caesar salad, to name a few options.

The festival starts Wednesday and ends Sunday. Wednesday’s big event is the 72nd Maine Sea Goddess Coronation. That piece of the festival caused a stir in the community last year when the winner lost her crown a day after her coronation over social media posts showing her holding a marijuana cigarette.

New leaders of the festival later apologized to the pageant winner, Taylor Hamlin.