Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Argiope Aurantia

After our 11 day streak of Northerlies, we just made it through a few days of virtually zero wind.  Luckily, there has been some swell, so we've been surfing it up, dawn and dusk.  Got out on the SUP, too, and had a blast the other night.  Check out the vid:


Evening Surf from Andy McKinney on Vimeo.


Fun stuff!  Wendy and Roland were out last weekend, also, and just sent me a few pics.  Killin' it!!  Check 'em out:





Wendy and her dolphin friends!  
 
 Anne and I have a hibiscus plant on our porch.  I've noticed that some of the leaves were looking chewed up lately.  This morning, I found the culprit:

 
And then I noticed this guy:
And then I went to get my board and almost walked straight into this little lady:

 
Eeeek!  That thing is the size of a tennis ball!!  Huge, and freaking scary.  So I looked it up, and it's called an Argiope Aurantia- eeek!  Sounds scary, eh?  Then I got to the common name:  Yellow Garden Spider.   Not even remotely poisonous or lethal or territorial or anything.  Sheesh, what a letdown...  Stained the old underoos for nothing!

11 comments:

Tom T said...

man those waves look really, REALLY fun! I can almost feel the water on my feet!

-tom

Ken K said...

Looks like Rowland and Wendy are starting to get dialed in.

Andy, I always look forward to the music accompanying your videos. Oh and the videos are great too!

rdm said...

I know. No crying and all but I did get a little misty watching. And too bad about the undie soilage.

Brian S said...

Andy, just curious about your 8-legged mate. According to Wiki, "Males range from 5 to 9 mm; females from 19 to 28 mm". If yours was tennis ball size, maybe it's something else - or just well-fed??

George Markopoulos said...

Roland and Wendy killing it for sure. Nice wave roland!
See ya'll next week

Waterturtle said...

oh man....it can't get here soon enough...see you all there soon!

Nicolas said...

My day job sucks. Thanks for the relaxing tones.

Bill said...

Nice Andy!
I live here too, and feel I am missing out... Too much daytime in front of the computer/on conference calls this late summer/early fall.

Definitely hate Fed gov fiscal year deadlines!

Hopefully this coming weekend offers the two forecast NE days?! Of course, also lets hope for action the weekend following too!!

Andy said...

Hey hey- glad y'all like the vid (and tunes). My taste of music is really broad... so depending on the mood of the sesh, I usually try to match it up...

Brian- Well fed for sure!! You've seen the size of the mosquitoes we get, right?? Anyway, the abdomen/body was for sure at least 25mm, and was shaped like an extremely plump olive. The pic is of the bottom of the spider, so the coloring doesn't show up, but it was definitely a yellow garden spider. And I guess I was including the span of the legs when I used the tennis ball analogy.

And hey y'all, I have a day job, too. I go there every day. The difference is that I make a point of hitting the water every morning and/or evening while I'm not at work... Just takes a little planning ahead, that's all...

See y'all soon! Wave Fest, woop woop!!

Keith said...

nice job on the video.. you've got entirely too much time on your hands!:-)-K

Andy said...

Yeah! I don't sleep much, and I don't have a TV to sit and watch... Regardless, that was a little over 2 hours of effort, start to finish. Glad you like it :)

Wait a second- weren't you the guy who spent 5 hours at the Lighthouse today??? ;) haha caught ya!