Colour tattoo of a grey anchor wrapped in rope, with blue waves and Roman numerals on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Anchor and waves on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A large anchor sits upright with a rope coiled around its shank, and the Roman numerals VIII XX MCMXXXII are shaded across the shaft. Blue waves with white highlights curl behind the anchor, with small red accents at the flukes and a gold ring at the top. Bold black outlines and smooth shading give a solid, classic look, shown in a close, centred composition.

Traditional Upper arm Anchor Rope Wave Roman numeral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The tide had turned by the time Ada Clough reached the quay, and the Pelican was already warping off the wall with her hold full of pilchards. Ada had her father's oilskin over one arm and a chandler's bill crushed in her fist, and she was not going to be left standing on the stones again. Samuel Ruddock, the mate, saw her coming and shook his head before she could speak. He had cut the date into the anchor's shank that morning with a cold chisel and a tin of lamp black: eight, twenty, nineteen thirty-two. It was the day her father had walked down this same quay and never walked back up it.

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Ada climbed the ladder anyway. The deck was slick with scales and the wind smelt of salt and paraffin. "You'll not have a berth," Samuel said. "Then I'll ride in the bilge," she said, and he laughed for the first time in a week, a short bark like a seal's. He pointed at the bow, where the anchor hung from its hawse with the rope coiled round its stock like a sleeping cat. "Your father swore the sea would give him back if the figures were kept true. I didn't believe him. I'm starting to."

They cleared the breakwater with the swell lifting the boat under them, and the blue water curled up white against the bow as if it had been painted there by someone in a hurry. Ada stood by the rail watching the numerals catch the light and understood, slowly, that the date had never been a grave. It was a sailing note, the day her father had promised to be home, and Samuel had kept it cut where the sea could see it. At the bar Samuel gave the order and the chain roared out through the hawse. Ada took the logbook from its nail and wrote the date beneath her father's last entry, then waited for the boat to swing to her hook.