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#Surfing - Champion Irish surfer Craig Butler was forced to cut a recent African waveriding trip short after falling victim to a spider bite.

As the Irish Independent reports, 20-year-old Butler received a bite from a false widow spider that left him dizzy and nauseated within a matter of hours.

Though not normally fatal, bites from these venomous arachnids - which are increasingly common in our more northern climes - can become infected and lead to serious complications.

That's the case with Butler, who returned to Ireland with a hugely swollen foot that prompted his concerned GP to refer him immediately to hospital.

As of yesterday morning, the multi-time Irish surfing champion from Tramore had been on a trolley at Waterford Regional Hospital for some hours awaiting a bed - and his appointment under the surgeon's knife.

It's not the first time he's dealt with a serious infection, after skipping treatment for a leg wound while surfing in France two years ago.

The Irish Independent has more on the story HERE.

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William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago