Stilt Houses and Scallops: A Dive Into Old Florida’s Hidden Gems

A writer rediscovers her love of scalloping amid the historic stilt houses in New Port Richey, Florida.

The sun rises on a steamy July morning as I sip my coffee and slather sunscreen all over, preparing for a day out on the water hunting for culinary treasures and reconnecting with a dwindling Old Florida pastime I loved as a college co-ed 25 years ago. Back then, the waters and grasses of Florida’s Gulf Coast were plentiful and deceivingly clear. I wonder if, like many things from that era, it’s not quite the same.

I have a charter boat and captain waiting for me at the Sunset Landing Marina on Florida’s Sports Coast. I’m ready to dive in for my dinner. Sea trout, red drum, flounder, shallow water grouper, snook, cobia and tarpon are plentiful in these warm Gulf of Mexico waters, but I’m here for the tender, sweet bay scallops hiding amid the waving meadows of seagrass on the sandy bottom.

After a short safety briefing and allocation of masks, fins and snorkels, Captain Mark Dillingham deftly maneuvers the 23-foot Key West Bay Reef boat through New Port Richey’s Venice-like canal system, passing working fishermen, collections of eclectic homes and sporadic mangroves as he motors toward the scallop beds adjacent to Pasco County’s historic stilt houses.

Rounding the corner from Durney Key, a primitive no-man’s-land island where locals tuck in for private picnics, nine wooden structures rise out of the water. These fish camps, erected as early as 1916 (though a specific date has not been verified), remain privately owned and once numbered 24 before natural disasters claimed some. They recall a slice of Old Florida before motorboats existed, when fishermen would push their boats with long poles.

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