All at Once: Scalloping

On our last day in Florida we went scalloping! It was so much fun, I really enjoyed it! We drove a little over an hour to Crystal River, met our guide and headed out to the ocean. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the area by boat where there was prime scalloping. It was a beautiful day out, cool in the morning (we loaded the boat at 8 am) and then it got quite warm, which I didn't mind one bit.

Once we arrived (pretty much in the middle of no where water), our guide gave us some tips:
1. It is like an Easter Egg Hunt (a very hard one at that, in my opinion)
2. Don't dive down unless you know for sure that it is a scallop, otherwise it's a waste of energy (I learned that lesson)
3. To dive down, lift one leg up and sink down, don't flap your flippers.
4. Collect the scallops in your bag, don't tie it.
5. Go against the current, so on your way back from the boat it will be easy to swim back. Stay within 150 feet of the boat.

I think I followed these well!

Our guide went in first to demonstrate what to do, but I don't think he did a good job! He never even showed us what a scallop looked like! So, I jumped into the water, 84 degrees to be exact (it felt like a hot tub compared to the 60-degree CT water!). I was looking around and having a really hard time. I dove down thinking it was a scallop, but nope it was a rock. The guide finally showed me what one looked like and I swam around with him for a little bit to get the hang of it. In no time, I was a scalloping machine! I found the most out of everybody (well besides the guide...you should have seem how many he found). We were out there for 3 hours. It is a lot harder than it looks. I think I collected around 70 and the total with everyone was probably around 250, I'm guessing. We had two quart full bags of scallops by the end of the afternoon.

I had a great time scalloping, if you ever get the chance to do it, go for it! It was my favorite thing that we did in Florida.

CHECK OUT THESE SNORKELERS!

Grandma getting ready!

Caught Grandpa off guard!

Chris taking a break

My bag of scallops! I know...I'm looking quite funny here.

Dad looking real hard

Our guide did all the dirty work. He picked all of the scallops out of the shells. He let us try a raw scallop. It tasted really good, the saltwater really complimented it.

So what did we do with all the scallops? We had them for dinner of course! We ate one bag, which was a lot! I was stuffed after dinner. My grandparents froze the rest.