Minecraft Adventure Day 1: A Great Start!

I was spawned on a small island, but it was near a larger mainland with many trees. I got off to a good start, punching down trees, mining stone, it was good. But it soon got even better when I wandered around to see if I could find a cave. I quickly found a large ravine with a mine shaft in it. I jumped in and immediately found a half stack of iron, which I used to make a shiny iron pickax. The main problem with the ravine and mine shaft was the mobs. I found many creepers, skeletons and spiders, thanks to the many cave spider spawners that I found. I disabled them but on my second one I had forgotten to make armor (even though I had like a stack of Iron...don't ask me what I was thinking) I quickly got cornered and overpowered by many spiders. Sadly, I died, but I ran back to the same spot to get my items back. After that I crafted some fresh iron armor to protect me. This allowed me to explore the entire mine shaft. I ended up grabbing two stacks of iron, about 45 gold, a stack of redstone, and 32 lapis. Personally I would say that is a pretty good pull from a quick 10 minute mining trip. I surfaced and got a small base of operations going. This included the usual crafting table, furnace and chest, but also cows, chickens, and crops. Overall, I think that that is a pretty good first day of survival Minecraft.