Why did it have to be spiders....

Everyone has something they're afraid of. Something they wouldn't want to find in their house in the middle of the night.

For Indiana Jones, it was snakes.

For me? Spiders.

I cannot stand spiders. I loathe them. I fear them. They make me go all shivery. I once refused to allow my boyfriend to touch me after he vaccuumed up a few spider eggs sacs until he'd washed his hands 97 times.

I've gotten a little better over the years.

I am now a trained spider killer and I kill on sight.

Now, you may be asking yourself why I'm posting about spiders on a liveaboard blog. It's an interesting question. And if you haven't spent much time in marinas you probably don't know that spiders love marinas and boats. Love them.

And if you don't keep up with them they'll take over a boat. And they'll go sailing. And they never flake the sails correctly.

Ahem.

So when I lived in DC, there was a serious spider problem at my marina and I purchased a corn broom from Wal Mart specifically for killing spiders and wiping away their webs.

Then winter came and the problem got a whole lot better.

Now that it's spring and I'm at the new marina in Baltimore, the spiders are back, pesky things.

Today, for instance, I went for a short afternoon sail with my pal Pastor Mark and my dad. And Mark points out a spider on the boom. So I take the winch handle (I'd just been tightening the jib, so it was handy) and swing it at the dangling spider... and throw the winch handle overboard.

Luckily it was the floating kind.

Also unluckily I don't have a net, so Mark did man overboard maneuvers, Dad grabbed my feet and I hung three-quarters of my body over the side and managed to snag the handle.

Unluckily I didn't kill the spider with the throw and Dad and Mark refused to let me try again with the winch handle.

So now, I must ask you, faithful readers, if any of you have any awesome spider repellent techniques. Do you? I hope so. Because there's a lot of spiders here and I have only so many winch handles I can throw overboard...