Part of today’s post follows on yesterday’s, the arrival of NYK Blue Jay.  Although she is no larger than the other ULCVs now serving the sixth boro, the fog obscuring the Staten Island in the background creates an illusion of size. Miniature tugs follow this vessel appearing the largest thing ever to enter the harbor.  If the 1920s launched an era of skyscrapers on boro of Manhattan, then the past year and a half that has ushered in the ULCVs is truly an era of coast scrapers, certainly hoping not bottom scrapers.  Out at the entrance to the Ambrose, pilots climbing from the pilot boat must feel they’re beside a rolling, pitching, yawing skyscraper.

If painted orange, Robbins would look like a traffic cone.

Note the three tugs totaling  combined 18000 hp lined up alongside, and

fog downsizes the heights of the skyscrapers.

Let’s switch gears and embrace the merger of tanker names and popular culture, specifically the villainous organization at the heart of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Since my son has caught me up on Hydra, this seems one of the strangest vessel names I’ve seen…   If you know the reference, it rivals King Barley and Turmoil.

Siirt I’ve seen before.

Undine heads in with Brazilian oil, I believe.  Un-dine . . . has intriguing semantic possibilities, or well, it’s just the name of a type of water fairy.  Since I mentioned popular culture earlier here, Undine would fit right into the Australian show Tidelanders.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes you understand the educational and therapeutic benefits he gains from haunting the port.