Tuesday morning aboard Sea Play II, 39 nautical miles off Freeport Texas. We are into schoolie dolphin with the entire Gulf of Mexico for saltwater fishing to ourselves. Well, not quite to ourselves. Between releases of small dolphin I notice an LGD, the designation for a bird you can't identify. The Little Grey Bird circles the boat, destination unknowable. A home-comer, finding its way back to Texas from a Central American vacation?

Closer now, we see that it is yellow-green. A goldfinch? I have seen them in the Big Bend, fighting off rivals at the top of century plants and acacias. It is a dust mote in a universe of saltwater fishing, but riveting to the eye until a red snapper tries to steal my bait 130 feet down, finds a hook instead and forces me back to the world of saltwater fishing.

Other snapper taken by the group are small, and as one snapper fish goes, so goes the school in the saltwater. Cap'n Don O'Neal yells to pull the lines in from the saltwater, revs the engines and we go after bigger saltwater fish elsewhere.

Elsewhere, bigger saltwater fish join the ice box, and after a long day, we have some 40 miles between us and port. Sea Play II heads to Freeport, Texas twin diesels leaving a mountain of foam just aft. Jim Terry and I perch on a big cooler at the stern, watching the thunder of wake and water, ever the same but constantly changing, a full but hypnotic scene of saltwater.

The wake stretches to the horizon, a white trail diminishing into cobalt but, with no interruption save an occasional panicked flying fish, And, a thousand yards back, the merest speck of a bird. The LGD? We watch the bird idly for awhile, glad to have something for the eye besides wake. It gradually draws closer to the boat, flying in bursts, rising with rapid wing strokes, falling a bit, then rising again.

"What energy," Terry says.

Time passes and nautical miles disappear behind us, but the bird hangs in, gradually drawing closer to the saltwater fishing Texas boat. A tiny yellow-green speck of life takes on grand scale, a friend now, just trying to make it home. We urge it on.

"Fly, little bird."

"Come on--you can do it!"

But the bird falls back, nearer the saltwater, is losing the fight to make it home to a back yard feeder or a Big Bend acacia. We yell at Capt. O'Neal on the bridge. He nods and slows the boat a notch. Our bird makes up some distance, nears the saltwater fishing Texas boat, and now everyone on board is shouting encouragement.

But a churning mountain of foam rises just back of the stern, and our bird must rise and fly over that obstacle or be drawn into the air-filled water, death as certain as falling into flame. It disappears behind the white mountain of saltwater fishes.

"Aw, no," someone mutters. "All that effort--" but the bird rises above the foam and comes on, and all five of us cheer as though our team had just won the Super Bowl. The bird almost lands in the cockpit, then takes station up and ten yards back. Drafting us?

After a few minutes, Capt. O'Neal grins, goes back to full speed and off we go, a minute yellow-green bird flying along with us like a winner's pennant.

Many miles later, Texas rises over the horizon. Our bird darts ahead of the boat and heads for home, making the trip a nicer thing to have done on a Tuesday. --Sam Caldwell

Sea Play is located approx. 1 hour South of Houston on Hwy. 288. She is berthed at Bridge Harbor Yacht Club in Freeport, just minutes away from open water via the Intercoastal Waterway.