SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip

Jim Cole has decided he needs more exercise. His venue for exercise is to get up early in the morning and climb Tomarree, a moutain at the entrance to the bay he lives on. So one morning I followed him. Think of a couch potato following a Gazelle. As it happens, the trail gets so steep half way up that there is a nearly infinite set of stairs to climb. They are great stairs made of galvanized steel and they have hand railings (for me, Jim only touches them for balance). I'm gripping them and hauling myself upward partially with my arms. Under one of them lay a spider. When I gripped the railing it bit me! As I retracted my hand the spider fell to the ground. It was small and black, but mostly instead of inspecting the spider I was gripping my finger which hurt a lot. This turns out not to be the correct reaction. Instead you are supposed to whip out your cell phone, chase down the spider and photograph it. This isn't for wildlife blogging. The issue is what treatment you can receive at the local hospital. If it is a Funnel web spider, it appears to involve amputation. The talk at the dock last night was of a local butcher who they thought would lose his arm, but as it turned out only lost his finger. What a bother. I'm trying to say that Aussies take this in stride. Another local venemous spider is the White Tail Spider, also venemous. And now that I think of it, I've seen spider webs almost everywhere I look. Geez. All I thought to worry about was snakes.

The picture is of our group on the Sidney Harbor Bridge Climb.