Flat blue design of a leaping dolphin with swirling wave and splash shapes, shown as a drawing rather than on skin.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Leaping dolphin with wave swirls

Colour · Flash

A solid blue silhouette of a dolphin leaping upward, with its tail curling at the bottom of the image. Stylised swirls and wave shapes rise around its body and tail. The linework is bold and filled rather than shaded, with a slightly textured blue fill on a plain white background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

Keep reading

Forgive the smudge. The galley hatch has been slamming shut all morning and the lamp swings so hard on its hook that my pencil keeps wandering off the line. We are three days out from the Scillies and I have burnt the porridge twice, so you will understand if this letter is shorter than you'd like.

The dolphins came up at first light, a dozen or so, cutting in under the bow as if they had been sent for. Mr Pascoe came down to fetch the kettle and found me at the porthole with my mouth open. They leap clean out of the water, bend in the middle like they're folding a sheet, then hang there a moment with the spray coming off them in little scrolls. The swell does the rest. Every wave seems to curl up at the same place they jump, so it looks as if the sea is drawing them in ink.

The one I like best peels away from the others and sticks to our starboard side, close enough that I could reach out and touch the wet grey of its back if I had the nerve. Every time I open the scullery door it comes up to look at me, tail flicking at the bottom of the swell. I have been saving the heel of yesterday's loaf for something. Yesterday I threw it over and it took the crust straight off the top of the water, neat as a cat.

Skipper says it is bad luck to whistle at them and worse luck to name them, so I have called it nothing at all. I just leave the crusts on the step and wait for it to come up and say good morning.

Love, Tom

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