Florida Bucket List - Another Check

When we moved to Florida, I created a bucket list. It has things like:

• visit The Everglades as an adult
• go to Sanibel Island
• learn to kayak
• swim with manatees
• go scalloping
• go to St. Augustine
• visit South Beach

As time goes by, I'm getting to check more and more things off my list. Today, I went scalloping for the first time. It was so much fun. Our boat captain said it was like an underwater Easter egg hunt. After I'd been out awhile, I decided it was more like snorkeling with a big bonus.

While we were boating out towards where we'd be looking for scallops, the captain was giving us instructions, dos and don'ts. I had visions of me being a scalloping failure, not being able to find any scallops - or worse yet - finding them and not being able to capture them. Not to worry. I was able to see them... and I managed to pick up 14 of them. And yes, Chef, a few moments during the nearly 2 hours that I was out in the water, I did pay more attention to photography than to finding scallops. But that's par for the course for me!

Because we live so close to where we'd gone scalloping, after we got off the boat and the captain told us that he needed an hour to an hour and a half to clean all the scallops, my friends and I came home and then one of my friends went back after showering to pick up our scallops. We definitely got more than what we found. I didn't expect to have enough for dinner. But we had a nice baggy full!

In the car driving home, we'd talked about scampi so I mentioned that to the Chef when he asked what we were having for dinner. We didn't have lemon so off I went to the grocery store to pick up some lemons. By the time I got home, the Chef had found and printed out a recipe for Bay Scallops Scampi.

Neither one of us slept last night so the Chef asked if I'd mind cooking. He'd chopped the onion for me but could I do everything else? SURE! I looked at the recipe. It seemed basic enough. More fat than I'd probably choose to use, but I was tired, too, so decided to just follow the recipe as written. It was delicious! Snorkeling burns enough calories that I had more than enough to indulge with the extra fat. Yummy meal... and to think that I gathered (some of) the scallops! Very exciting stuff.

It's day 9 and I'm still doing fine. Two more weeks to go until I get a little reprieve. I think I can do it.

Day 9: 46 pounds to go