Black fine line tattoo of an anchor with a looping swirl and a small cross bar on the upper arm, photographed close up on pale skin.

Anchor and swirl fine line tattoo

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A black fine line tattoo shows an anchor with a long shank that passes through a large looping swirl, with a circle and a cross bar at the top. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and the tattoo sits against pale skin. It is a single-colour close-up photograph with the tattoo centred in the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the bosun has finally let me have the pen, so forgive the scrawl. We rounded the Horn on Tuesday with the foresail in ribbons and Mr Abbott swearing at the weather like it had insulted his mother. You would have laughed. I did, afterwards, when my hands stopped shaking enough to hold a mug.

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The ship's carpenter has been carving a new capstan bar for the windlass, and while he worked I sat on the hatch and watched him draw the curl of the old one on a scrap of board. He said the swirl was the easy part. The hard part is getting the shank straight through it so the whole thing looks like it was always meant to hold something down. He let me hold the compass while he measured. I told him about the bit of ribbon you tied round the gate post the week I left, and he said that was a proper anchor too, the kind that keeps a person from drifting off.

We make Valparaiso in nine days if the wind holds, and I have decided to stop counting the days on the bulkhead and simply count the cups of tea I have left in the tin. Twelve, I think. Tell Mother the cat is not to sleep on my good coat, and tell the baker the loaf on the corner is always underdone. I will write from port. Keep the lamp lit on the step for me, the way you did last winter when the river flooded the lane and I came up it soaked to the knees.

Your loving husband, Tom

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