Spiders and Spelunking Pictures

After exploring the uphill ("mauka") side of Kaumana Caves last week, I got a few pictures of the trip from my friend. Now, while I hate having my picture taken in any sort of “candid” form, or your standard “everyone stand together and say ‘cheese’!” moment, I do enjoy hamming it up for the camera on occasion. With that said, here are a few pictures of me in the caves:

“After hours of contemplation, I have concluded: this is, indeed, a rock.”
(I've got quite The Thinker vibe going on here, don't I?)

This is the entrance to a neat little side tunnel off the main tube that I'd like to explore sometime.

I really, really like this picture. This is the skylight that reminded me of Portal 2.

If you read the post title and are wondering where the spiders come in, wonder no more. It involves my first encounter with the Heteropoda venatoria, also known as the brown huntsman spider or (in Hawaii) the cane spider.

The story begins this Sunday, as I was riding home from church on my moped, when I thought I felt something move in my hair inside my helmet, which I had left on the moped seat outside during the service. Of course it happened while sitting at a red light, leaving me with a burning desire to get to the side of the road and get my helmet off as quickly as humanly possible. When I did, imagine my consternation at finding a cane spider with a good 3-inch leg-span running around frantically inside my helmet.

I'm a bit of an arachnophobe when it comes to spiders larger than a dime that move super fast, and according to Wikipedia cane spiders are “very easily alarmed” by humans, so I think it's safe to say that both of us were pretty much equally terrified. I dropped my helmet, and the spider ran out (and boy let me tell you, those suckers move fast).

At this point, I'm proud to say that my scientist instincts kicked in and my curiosity mastered the powerful urge to flee blindly in panic (especially when the spider ran right at my feet). Quickly whipping out my camera I was able to get the following two pictures of the spider before it ran off:

I'm not sure what it is about making first contact with Hawai‘i's creepy-crawlies in my hair (see: my first encounter with a centipede), but I'm really hoping this doesn't become a trend.