If you’re anything like me, you don’t always register the seasons according to what the calendar says, but rather listen instead to some “interior logic” of your own. So, in my mind, the 4th of July holiday marks the height of summer–and by the same measure, the long slow slide into the dog days, and then into fall.
But we won’t go there yet. Especially now that I’m in north Florida, the cooler weather of autumn is a lo-o-ong way off yet. We’re firmly mired in the sweat and heat and sticky humidity of high summer.
Just now, the first plums from my tree are ripening. (First and last will be pretty close–my whole crop this year, thanks to that late double-whammy frost, will be 6 fruit. Yes, just six–assuming the birds and squirrels don’t steal any.) The tomatoes have given up under the crippling heat and humidity, and the potted fig tree struggles to get enough water to hold onto its ripening fruit, despite my attempts to water it twice a day. Sleeves are not something I want on my clothing in any form after 9 am. Even the dog, a dedicated sun-worshiper, gives up around 10 a.m., and lays panting inside on the relatively cool tile floors. I wipe up puddles of drool, just wishing I could automatically redirect them to the poor, gasping fig tree.
Into all this yuck, spousal unit and I joined up with friends and went out into the Gulf flats around Steinhatchee for scalloping. They’d gone last year, but this was my first time. I was excited to try scalloping and found it was oddly fun and totally relaxing.
Two small, flat-bottomed boats with captains headed out to the shallow scalloping grounds. The season is short enough–just six weeks–so reserving a spot early is always recommended. We were early, but there were already a few boats there. By the time we left, the area was teeming with small craft, and heads and snorkel tubes thickly dotted the flat waters.
Once at our destination, the shore a barely visible line floating a bit above the horizon line due to humidity, we donned snorkel gear and were handed a net bag. I popped overboard into the grassy waters, through which I glimpsed sand and the occasional small fish, and found myself in chest-high water.
The object was to swim along, eyes trained downwards, and look for the scallops moving up higher to feed. The small bivalves shoot water out to “swim” to new locations, and they filter water through ferny, gill-like fronds of bluish-white or orangish-tan. Sometimes the sunlight filtering down would reflect off their blue-black “eyes,” which somehow (they don’t really have eyes, or even brains, so how they manage this is pretty astounding!) sensed creatures coming near and caused the scallop to snap shut and maybe try to shoot away. A few lively ones would chatter even in your hand, snapping their clamshells repeatedly (they were shooting water, trying to dart away).
Floating in the salt water, I spotted blobby, rubbery-looking growths of new coral; gray hued-spider crabs busily eating with their tiny mouths, their outsized legs splayed out around their bodies; small starfish galore, both flat, star-shaped ones and others wrapped tight around thick grasses; various fishes; a horseshoe crab hiding beneath a mound of coral; a quite large hermit crab occupying a lovely conch shell; and so much more.
Despite the snorkel mask and mouthpiece, water still sneaked into the system now and again, lingering in the airtube and rasping ominously with each inhalation and exhalation. Husband said it creeped him out, sounding like looming death in his ear. I found it oddly appropriate, to my mind turning me into the Darth Vader of the Scallops, one by one bringing them to the Death Star of the boat. He confirmed that I’m weird, and that writing is obviously my calling, which only endeared me to him more. Thus is life good.
And fresh-caught scallops are tasty!
So, a Happy High Summer to you all! May you always be the Seeker, not the Sought.
Everyday Magic | M. E. Garber 