Pencil sketch of a compass rose with N, E, S and W labels and the words A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor set in a circle around the centre.

Compass rose with sailor quote

Black and grey · Flash

A pencil drawing of a compass rose with the letters N, E, S and W at the cardinal points, and a decorative fleur-style tip at the north. Handwritten script runs around a shaded circle, reading A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. The linework is fine and shaded in graphite grey, with an eight-point star and small dots marking the circle.

Compass Compass rose Quote Sea Sailor Script lettering

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lift was out again when I got back from the Co-op, so I carried the bags up all sixteen floors and stopped on every landing to tell myself the wind was only wind. By the eleventh it was singing through the gap in the stairwell window as if it had something to prove. Mrs Okafor from six was on the landing with her pram, saying the council would sort it by Christmas, and we both knew they wouldn't.

Keep reading

Your letter came on Tuesday. I read it twice standing by the bins, then again at the kitchen table with my coat still on. You say the trawler is bigger than the whole of Ferndale Road, that the men on it don't speak to you unless you've done something wrong, and that you were sick over the side twice before Thursday. Don't tell me you're thinking of coming home. I know what your face does once you've decided.

Ray gave you that compass when you were nine. You took it apart on the kitchen floor to see where the north went, and I told you that you'd never get it back together. You did, with a spare spring and a lot of swearing. Ray used to say a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. He said it at the bus stop, in the chippy, and the week before his stroke when he could barely get the words out. I thought it was the sort of thing men say to make other men feel better about being cold.

The compass is on the windowsill now, needle turning slowly towards the car park lights. Hold on to the rough weather, love. Ray would have said so too, and for once he'd have been right.