It’s not very often that a single headline, such as “Mayhem hits MDI,” might do for an entire issue of the paper. This week, however, there seems to be more than enough calamity, controversy and misbehavior to go around. And, in the universe’s warped way of reaching equilibrium, year-round residents and tourists alike all got in on the action.

Officials on the Bar Harbor waterfront are thankful that a cruise ship tender accident did not end up with injured people in the ocean on a dark, foggy and rainy night. If not for the captains and the fearless crews of local boats that came to the rescue, however, people (excluding the Skipper the Gilligan) may have been lost.

Far from lost, too many Acadia National Park visitors on Sunday knew exactly where they were going when they tried to get to the top of Cadillac Mountain at one time. That forced rangers to close the road to automobiles for a short time. Some area residents got hot under the collar when wild and untrue rumors circulated that the mountain was being reserved for use by bus-riding cruise ship passengers.

A massive fire leveled the carpentry and millwork shop at R.L. White and Son in Bar Harbor early Tuesday morning. Crews did a splendid job of protecting nearby structures from harm. There too, injury was avoided.

When it came to other early-morning excitement, a California motorcyclist is lucky to be alive after fleeing from police and crashing his ride under a metal guardrail near the head of the island. He was out of the hospital after a few days but there is no word on any injuries suffered when police threw the book at him.

Crashing and not burning was also the scenario for a Bar Harbor man who decided to forego heading over the river and just took his grandmother’s brand-new pickup truck through the woods, leaving the front bumper and license plate behind as evidence.

All that, notices for end-of-season sales, real estate ads, arts and entertainment, sports and maritime news, in this week’s Islander.