Your feather is one of the outer primaries from the left wing of a Herring Gull. I'd guess it is the 8th or 9th primary, and the white tip has worn off because this is a worn, year-old primary. These birds are finishing their primary molt now, and that's probably a feather that has dropped (could have in the past few weeks). It's probably from a sub-adult bird, if that's p9 (adults have a small subterminal mirror on that feather). You can compare to an adult here, where p9 is second from the left and just over 14" long: http://www.fws.gov/lab/featheratlas/feather.php?Bird=HERG_primary_adult_bluebk
The pattern of gray and black is somewhat variable, and its hard to tell if your feather isn't p8. It's not the feather of a gannet, but that sounds like what you saw earlier.
Kind regards,
Louis
Fairfield
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