Traditional style tattoo of a black-sailed ship with a red sun and teal waves on the back of a hand.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sailing ship and waves on the back of a hand

Traditional · Hand · Mixed · Photo

A three-masted sailing ship with dark grey and black sails sits at the centre of the design, with small birds flying above and a red sun to the left. Bold black outlines define the ship and the scalloped waves beneath it, which are filled with teal, green and pink. The tattoo fills most of the back of the hand against a plain white background.

Traditional Hand Ship Sailing ship Sun Wave Sea Bird

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The gulls came out to meet the Marigold off the Goodwin Sands, a dozen of them screaming over the topsails as if they'd been paid to. Mrs Pryce from the chandlery swears they were the same birds that sat on the harbour wall when Father sailed, and I told her that was nonsense, but I walked down to the slip anyway and counted them. Eleven. I haven't stopped thinking about the twelfth.

The sun has been red all week, hanging low over the Downs the colour of the thread you used on the canvas bag before you left. Mr Haddow at the bank says it's smoke from the new furnaces at Dover, and perhaps it is. I prefer to think it's only waiting for you to round the North Foreland so it knows which way to set.

The letter from the Board came on Tuesday. They want the Marigold's papers stamped at the frontier office before she can take on cargo for Ostend, and they want a name for the pilot on the manifest. I wrote yours down before I could stop myself, crossed it out, then wrote it again in a neater hand. The clerk said the sea has a way of keeping things, and I told him I knew exactly what it kept and what it gave back.

I've pinned the tide table beside the clock on the mantel, the one with the scalloped edge like the waves in the drawing you sent. Come home before the sun goes white. The gulls are still watching the harbour mouth, and so am I.

Your loving sister, Nell