Thanks to tugster readers who snap photos and write tugster editorial offices, I sometimes can include dispatches from far-flung places.  Today’s post comes thanks to bowsprite who texted me the other day mentioning a pelican at the North Fork of Long Island.

I had limited wifi at the time, so I expected later to see a photo of a haggard fish-eating semitropical bird blown out of its usual habitat by this summer’s storms.  Later but before I could open the photo file, she asked about VIMS, and I could not imagine why.

But here is is . . . a vessel named Pelican looking faintly military and with ghost letters midships “VIMS.”

Click here for a thorough orientation to the boat since its adoption as VIMS flagship in 2003.  But according to this, a new vessel was ordered, and here it is (as a rendering) . . .

Here’s more about the shipyard in Matane, QC.

Many thanks to bowsprite, who’s especially buoyant these days,  for this photo and news.

Click here for previous posts featuring research vessels.

Agaain, thanks to bowsprite for sending this along.

postscript:  Now the vessel goes by Bush Master.