Boats and spiders just seem to go together. The first few nights I lived aboard, I was covered in spider bites. I could actually see the fang marks on my forearm with one particularly nasty bite. I started my campaign against the spiders. I spider bombed the boat when we were gone overnight. I sprayed the dock lines every couple days. I sprayed a lot of places. And it seemed to be working, for awhile. But then I'd step out into the cockpit in the morning only to walk through an enormous web. I started seeing spiders on the outside of the boat, webs were popping up overnight like Starbucks in gentrifying neighbourhoods. I was losing the battle. Just the other days, I was sitting in the cabin with my laptop open when a little spider dropped down from his long single thread right between me and the screen. I heard him ask, "What are you doing, updating your status on Facebook?". In May, I couldn't bear the thought of a spider in the same room with me. Now, I grabbed that nosy little spider in my fist and squeezed tight, merely wiping the carnage on my jeans. As the season wears on, you become a lot less squirmish about all kinds of things.
