Black and grey tattoo of an octopus with tentacles wrapped around an anchor, in a traditional style, on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Octopus and anchor on an upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large octopus with its tentacles coiling around an anchor, with the head and eye visible in the lower half of the design. The linework is bold and dark, with grey shading used for the tentacle suckers, the octopus body and the metal of the anchor. The tattoo fills most of the frame on the outer upper arm, with a green cloth and blue fabric visible at the edges.

Traditional Upper arm Octopus Anchor Tentacle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The anchor came up off Sennen with the octopus still on it, a fat grey thing wound three times round the shank as though it had been waiting there since the Armada. Jory Pascoe, who had hauled that anchor for eleven seasons, swore the creature was looking at him. Cook wanted a knife and a bucket. The skipper, Ada Trewin, said nothing for a long minute, then took the gaff off its hook herself.

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She did not strike it. She worked the hook under the loose coil of arms and lifted, slow as a tide, until the octopus let go of the iron one sucker at a time. It slid down the gaff into the green water with a sound like wet leather, and the crew went back to their coffee and their jokes about skippers who talked to fish. Only Jory noticed the mark it left behind: a ring of pale, perfect dimples pressed into the rust on the fluke, as neat as a stamp on a letter.

The gale came in February, out of the south-west, and the boat dragged her anchor toward the Runnel stones with the sea breaking white over the bow. When the warp finally snapped taut Jory was tangled in the bight of it, one boot caught, the rope already pulling him toward the rail. Something cold closed round his ankle and held. He felt the grip loosen, then let go, and the line went slack. The boat rode clear of the rocks by a cable's length.

Ada hung the anchor on the harbour wall that spring, the mark turned outward for anyone to see. Nobody on the quay will say who leaves a pint of pilchards on the sill of the net loft each March, but the bowl is always empty by morning, and the sea off Sennen is never quite as cold as the forecast says.