Small black and grey realism tattoo of a humpback whale diving on the upper chest near the shoulder.

Humpback whale on the shoulder

Realism · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A small tattoo of a humpback whale with its tail raised and pectoral fin extended, shown on the upper chest near the shoulder edge. The body is filled with soft black and grey shading, with darker tones on the back and lighter shading on the belly. The whale sits on bare skin against a plain light background, with a black strap at the right edge of the frame.

Realism Shoulder Whale Tail Fin Ocean

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

...and so the hydrophone is back in its tin box, where Ruth says it belongs until somebody pays for a new battery. You asked in your last letter whether the humpbacks still sing off the Ness, and I promised to answer once I had listened to the tapes properly. I have now. Three nights in the wheelhouse with the tide going out under us and the headphones gone warm around my ears.

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The song is nothing like the sea shanties your grandfather used to bawl. It rises, folds back on itself, and then the same phrase comes round again, a little changed, the way a man tells a story he has told before. The old skippers said the whales carried a tune from one ocean to the next like a rumour in a pub. On the second night a young one came up beside the Morag, close enough that I could see its pale fin hanging in the green water like a long oar left out to dry. It lifted its tail clean out of the sea, held it there, then let it fall with a crack that made Ruth swear in the galley.

The third night is the one I keep thinking about. Between two phrases there is a gap of perhaps four seconds, and then, very faint, a second voice answers. It sings the same figure back, note for note, from somewhere far beyond the reef. I played the tape twice in case the hiss had tricked me. It had not. Whatever answered was a long way off, and it had learned those words from someone.

I have written the phrase out on the back of the tide table and pinned it above the kettle. Come home at Easter and listen for yourself. Bring your own good cassettes, not the cheap ones from the chandler's, which stretch if you look at them.

Love, Dad