Solid black blackwork design of a leaping orca with a white patch behind the eye and a curved tail, on a white background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Leaping orca design

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A bold silhouette of a leaping orca, shown in profile with its tall dorsal fin, tail flukes and head angled downward. The body is filled in solid black, with a white saddle patch along the back and a white eye patch with a thin white outline along the jaw. The design is set on a plain white background with no shading or other colour.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nell, the boat is still called the Marguerite, though Dad would have had her repainted by now if he'd lived to see the new hull. We were forty miles past the Scillies when the killer whale first came alongside, a big bull with a dorsal fin standing up like a sail. Skipper Tom swore it was the same one that had followed the Ardent in March, and nobody argued, because nobody wants to be the man who doubts a superstition at sea.

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Thursday the net came up light and the crew were sulking over the cold. Then the whale broke clean out of the swell off the starboard bow, all that black body hanging in the air with the white saddle flashing, and it came down with a slap that soaked Halvard to the skin. He laughed so hard he had to sit on the fish box. Even Skipper went quiet and took his cap off.

Here is the thing I keep turning over. Two hours later the hydraulics on the gantry failed and we had to haul by hand, and that's when we found the pod had been herding a shoal of mackerel straight into our mesh. Fourteen crates, Nell. Fourteen. Tom says it's coincidence. I'm not so sure. I've started leaving a bit of the morning's catch on the rail for it, which is daft, I know.

Anyway, I'll be home on the Sunday tide. Tell Mum the grey jumper's in my kitbag and I haven't lost it. Love, Jack.

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