Colour tattoo of a lighthouse, sailboat and waves inside a rope-edged heart, with purple flowers and green leaves, in a traditional style on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Heart-framed lighthouse and sailboat on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A bold rope-edged heart frames a seascape of a red and white lighthouse, a dark-sailed boat and layered teal waves, with a pale blue sky behind. The linework is thick and dark, with flat fills and smooth blended shading on the water and sky. Two purple flowers with yellow centres and green leaves sit at the base of the heart, and the composition is centred on the forearm.

Traditional Botanical Forearm Lighthouse Sailboat Wave Sea Rope Heart Flower Leaves Sky

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Owen,

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The rain has come in sideways over the fish market since Tuesday, and Mrs Pascoe has pulled a tarpaulin over the crab tubs so the gulls can't get at them. I stood under the awning this morning with a paper cup of tea going cold and watched the lamp at the end of the breakwater come on early, the way it does when the sky turns the colour of wet slate. Dad always said that light lied on grey days. It made the water look closer than it was.

The Morwenna came in on the flood without you. Pete Hallam brought her round the point at half six with the rail awash and nobody at the wheel but him, and he shouted across the slip that the squall had taken the mainsail and you'd gone up the mast to save the halyard. I didn't believe him, and I still don't. I stood on the wet cobbles until the last crate was off, then bought a dressed crab from Pascoe's cousin and ate it in the van with the wipers going.

Your ring is still in the tea caddy. I thought about selling it on Thursday when the rent letter came, and then I got the old chart out of the drawer, the one with the harbour mouth ringed in biro where you drew a heart of rope around it. The blue has faded to the colour of skimmed milk, but the lighthouse is still there, red stripe and all, and the channel runs straight out past it to open water.

So I've decided. Tonight I'll walk down after the market shuts, take the spare torch from the hook by the door, and sit on the bottom step of the breakwater until the tide turns. If you're out there I'll flash it three times, the way you taught me, and then I'll go home and leave the porch light on.

Love, Nell