The Z Squad: Scalloping in the Gulf

The Z-Squad's next adventure was scalloping with my parents and my sister's family at Keaton Beach, Florida. My parents go every year but this was our first time. It was like under water Easter egg hunting except much more fun and the scallops taste way better than boiled eggs. Even Travis and Landon were able to do it and they had a blast also. We were there for 5 days and I'm not sure how many we caught altogether but I'm betting it was in the thousands. We were finding so many in one dive that we were runing out of breath before we could get them all in the bag. Being the mean homeschool mom that I am, I checked out some books about scallops from the library. At first the boys complained that it was summer vacation and they didn't want to do anything educational. But after we started learning about the scallops they became more interested. We learned that scallops have about 60 blue eyes that peer out from between their shells. When Travis and Landon got to see them up close they were amazed. A few saw us coming for them and closed up fast pinching our fingers. We also found out that scallops can swim. We were curious as to how they did this until we got to see for ourselves. They clap their shells together which propels them through the water. They tried to get away from us but they werent't fast enough. We showed them no mercy.

Cleaning them was definately the worst part of it. It was a disgusting job. We also learned that the part of the scallop that you eat is actually the muscle that holds the shells closed. You have to clean all the other nasty junk from around it to get to the good stuff.