Breakwater, Rockland, ME

My wife and I were on a short break recently in New England, the first time we had been there together. And in fact she had never been to Maine before, only Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It was October, and we hoped for a glimpse of fall color, which is what I have missed after spending my first 17 years in Northern Indiana.

The weather ended up being grey, overcast and occasionally rainy for much of the trip, but we still ventured out to explore. We were spending two nights at The Lime Rock Inn in Rockland, Maine, and our hostess suggested a few points of interest, one being the almost mile-long breakwater.

The Rockland Breakwater shelters the harbor of Rockland, Maine. More than 4,000 feet (1,200 m) long, it was built in the 1890s by the United States Army Corps of Engineers out of locally quarried granite to improve the harbor's ability to shelter ships from coastal storms. Much of the rock was brought from islands by fishermen in their boats, a herculean task.

We started walking along the stone, and as we got about 1/3rd of the way, I saw a couple attempting a selfie. I offered to shoot it for them, they handed me their phone, and as I was composing I realized I needed to move to the right a little bit.

Which I did without looking down, and my right foot dropped immediately into one of the cracks between the rocks, right up to my hip. 

I didn’t drop the phone, and handed it to them while I began trying to extricate myself, with my foot wedged between the rocks several feet below. After a couple of minutes I was able to get my foot free, and with the help of a couple of bystanders I managed to get upright and assess the damage, which included a cut knee and scraped ankle. I offered to finish the job, and got their photo done before limping back to the car and heading to the drug store for some Tylenol to calm the bruises that were barking at me.

So this photo will always elicit some specific memories for me, filed under the heading of “no good deed goes unpunished!”

It was accepted in the "Black and White Monochrome" Exhibit at The International Center for Photography in the spring of 2024