Spider Spot Discovery!

SURF SPOTTED: Paul Spinden discovered this new surf spot near Rooiels. Photo Google Earth

Speaking from the Spider Centre where he was transferred from Tygerberg Hospital after suffering multiple bites from black button spiders and bruising from a bad fall yesterday, civil engineer Paul Spinden said he was walking through the bush along a cliff near Rooiels looking for a new righthand reef that he found on Google Earth.

Spinden, who is from Hermanus, said he had watched a surf movie on the web about how Skeleton Bay in Namibia was dicovered during a competition to find breaks on Google Earth, and he had decided to scout the area using the mapping app, starting from Bettys Bay, moving westward.

"I was really stoked to find what looked like a triangle of white water just off the cliffs near Rooiels, so I grabbed my 6' 6" Spider after I saw the incredibly accurate Wavescape forecast, and decided to go and find it," he said.

SPIDER BYTE: Peter Parker photographed this morning surfing smaller Spiders. Photo Justin Sac

The surf spot was just as it had looked on Google Earth: a perfect righthander reeling down a rocky reef for 300 metres or more. "I couldn't believe my eyes!" he said, describing how he watched one eight foot wave reel for 350 metres top to bottom from the takeoff zone all the way to the foot of the cliffs where he was standing.

"It was one of the best waves I have ever seen. The barrel literally rolled in on itself down the point, then sped up through this insanely fast end section," he said.

Linden says that he spun around in excitement, which was the last thing he should have done. "It was a surreal moment because all around the cliffs where these huge networks of spider webs. I was so stoked and desparate to get down to the rocks to surf that I tripped and fell right off the cliff, landing in a gigantic web of these weird yellow and black and orange spiders."

REIGNING SPIDERS: Thousands of spiders can be seen at Spiders, with Rooiels in the background.

"The web was incredibly strong, and I was left literally hanging. Before I passed out I just remember scores of them walking over me, feeling multiple stinging sensations. I woke up in Tygerberg Hospital We also had the bizarre view of flying spider squadrons literally dive-bombing the coastline to catch little kelp insects.and had a procedure yesterday to remove me from the cocoon they had spun, and then they had to remove the venom," he said.

Today, armed with the co-ordinates to the secret spot, which you can find at 34°19'11.70" S and 18°49'33.15" E, several of his friends paddled out and enjoyed fun silky 4-5' waves.

"It was epic! The surf was silky it was so smooth," said Peter Parker, an avid arachnid aficionado who coincidentally holds a doctorate in Arachnology, "although it was a little trippy with all the orb spiders on the beach. We also had the bizarre view of flying spider squadrons literally dive-bombing the coastline to catch little kelp insects."

"We could totally understand why Paul would want the spot to be called Spiders, and not Arachnids, or Arthropods, or even Araneomorphae, because that would just make it too tangled a web of complicated spider jargon," Parker said.

ARACHNID AIR: These spiders spin a vast web network that covers Cape milkwood groves.

The doctor who treated Linden, Dr Gwendolyne Stacy, said it was a Marvel that Spinden hadn't spun out and died from the Venom or morphed into a Green Goblin. "He has responded well to our spider serum that fortunately we had just taken delivery from Russia called Sputnik VI, which arrived with the batch of Covid vaccines Sputnik V," Stacy said, praising Parker for his gesture to name the spot in honour of his friend.

"Peter is such a wonderful man," she said, her eyes lighting up as she injected Spinden with his second dose of Sputnik. "The other totally wonderful thing that really makes me weak at the knees is that Paul is the first and only person I know to have been injected with both Sputniks! Medically that borders on a bonus that is beyond belief!"

Spinden will be released from the Spider Centre after the Easter weekend. He said he didn't want to become like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly

BOTTOM LINE: Doctors removed a total of 102 ml of spider poison from Spinden's body.

"Did you know that the silk of the Golden Orb spider is so strong, that if you had to put a web in the sky with Golden Orb silk the diameter of a pencil, a Boeing 747 would be stopped dead in its tracks?" Spinden said, before scuttling back into his silk sheets to lick a lamb chop from lunch.