We've taken off for the coastline every year since I was two years old. Whether that coastline skims the edge of New Jersey, the Carolinas, or St. Croix — it hasn’t made a difference. As long as we’re near the water in the summer months, all is right with the world.

Given our family’s love of the sea, there seldom comes a year when all five of us can evade the unfettered evil within every seagull’s heart. This year, the squadron of seagulls we encountered — is squadron the proper pluralization of seagull? It should be — descended upon us seemingly as one feathered mass, ripping through bags of Wavy Lays and spreading sand and ill-will with reckless abandon.

My brother named them all after English colonists, which seemed and still seems appropriate. I have duplicated their exact likeness for you here, in the form of composite sketches — let us hope they are swiftly brought to justice.