Day two in Crystal River saw us heading back over to Homosassa to meet the lovely folks from River Safaris to go on our Scalloping adventure. We headed out to the Gulf of Mexico with Captain Casey and Scott our in water guide to go diving for scallops.
The boat ride on the way out to the scalloping grounds is beautiful and we were really lucky to get to see some dolphins playing in the boats wake. Now I have never been diving before and I am not great with a snorkel but they really helped to make me feel relaxed and were great with the kids as well. I was absolutely rubbish at being able to dive down to catch the scallops but with the help of one of the nets on board I was soon filling up my scallop net and having lots of fun.
Scallop spotting is a skill and soon I was catching lots of them with the help of both my girls who were having a brilliant time in the water. When you go diving for scallops each boat has a maximum quota that they are allowed to catch and bring back and we managed to hit our quota for our trip.
Now you get to take our share of the Scallops away with you which is brilliant but we were staying in a hotel so we were happy to hear that some restaurants nearby are happy to cook your scallops for you and you can even pay someone to shuck them as well. Although if you do want to do this then the River Safari staff can show you how to do that. We headed to the Homosassa Riverside resort where we found people ready and willing to shuck our scallops for us and The Yard Arm Lounge who were happy to cook them for us.
The food at The Yard Arm Lounge was delicious and it overlooked Monkey Island which the girls really enjoyed. Eating the scallops that we caught meant that everyone tried them (and enjoyed them) and the restaurant cooked them in a variety of different ways for us to try.
We absolutely loved our day with River Safari and highly recommend it to everyone. The staff were brilliant and the whole experience of diving for our dinner is something we will never forget and something we will want to do again.
Unfortunately we only had two days to spend in this wonderful part of the world but it is definitely somewhere that we will return to and next time we will try to see even more of Citrus County.