It is the perfect ending to a perfect day.

We stand at the rear of the ferry, hordes of seagulls screaming overhead. The cold wind cuts through my body. Dale is braver than I; he holds the bread up so the gulls can take it from his fingers. He gets a few nips in his fingers that way but he doesn't mind. Taking the coward's path, I toss my offerings upward into the wind, right into their little beaks. They are so close I can reach out and touch them.

The gulls have a system. They hang in formation, screaming at the top of their lungs. As a piece of bread finds its home, that seagull moves out and lets the next one move into the feeding position. When that one gets his piece, he moves out and another assumes the position.

They look me in the eye as they hang above me. We are communicating on some strange, intense wavelength. Their screams completely dominate the moment, a chorus of voices raised in harmony, in stereo, digital surround sound. The screams are so forte, so encompassing, that one is transported from the deck of the ship to complete emersion in the seagull experience. Our souls reach out and touch, the birds and I, and for a few precious moments I am one with them. Those are my screams. My wings soaring in the breeze. My hunger I seek to quell.

Dale tells me that the seagulls have their very own desalinization unit located in the throat. It removes the salt from the water and allows them to survive in this environment. I am continually amazed by nature. And continually amazed by Dale, who knows all sorts of interesting things about the most bizarre subjects. You never know what he's gonna come up with.

Salt spray tickles my cheeks. Must be from the churning water down below where the big engines thrash their way through the brine. The deck vibrates with the power of the engines. It is comforting, the gentle quaking beneath my feet, the deep rumble of the stroking pistons. I close my eyes and become one with the vibration, letting it gently rock my body this way and that, shake me up, shake me down. Those engines could lull me to sleep were I not flying so high above them.

When again I open my eyes, I look at Dale and think how cool it is that he wanted to share my 8th Annual Winter Pilgrimage to Galveston. This is the first time anyone has done that.

Every year I mention to my friends that the Winter Pilgrimage is coming up in case they want to experience it.

"What's the Winter Pilgrimage?", they always ask.

"That's when I go to Galveston to say goodbye to the past and hello to the future. I visit the City Cemetery to pay homage to death. I go to the beach and write stuff in the sand and watch the tide wash it away. Let the cold winds cut through my bones and cleanse my soul. Stand on the beach and help the waves roll in, relentless in their quest for dry land, ravenous in their gradual obliteration of it."

"oh."

But *this* year ... this year our own beloved Dale Parish, Spooner Extraordinaire, stepped right up and raised his hand.

Now the bread is finished and the seagulls hang farther back, well over our wake, their screams somewhat less frantic. I realize I am really, really cold. We make our way back through the parked cars to the bow, where the Tangerine Dream is #1 on the line. I just want to be out of the wind now, but I stand at the car door, my hand on the handle, and let it blast through me once more for good measure.

Sitting in the Dream, we notice there is another contingent of seagulls up front escorting the boat. They fly right over the bow line, leading the way. We observe and speculate about them for the remainder of the journey. We wonder if they take turns with the gulls at the back of the boat. We wonder if there's some kind of gull competition that goes on as to who flies point and who eats. I am surprised that Dale doesn't have the answers to those questions, actually.

The ferry docks. The Dream clanks across the metal thingamajig that joins the boat with dry land and leads the great exodus back to the Island.

We depart Galveston Island via Seawall Boulevard instead of Broadway because I must hear the Gulf one more time. The sound of her must fill my ears, my head, my heart. I roll the window down to listen. I gaze out over the gray expanse in witness of her persistent advance, her sure and steady roll, her promise of perpetuity. She is wearing her loveliest whitecaps today.

Dale asks me if I know what "BOI" means.

"Born On the Island", I say.

It is an experience I know well.