Traditional style colour tattoo of an anchor wrapped in rope with a banner reading HOME, on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Traditional anchor with HOME banner

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A grey anchor wrapped with a twisted rope runs vertically across the limb, with a blue and white banner across its shaft that reads HOME in red letters. The bold black outlines and flat fills are typical of American traditional work. Blue, orange, red and yellow ink sit against the grey anchor, and the tattoo fills the centre of the frame against a dark background.

Traditional Forearm Anchor Rope Banner Home Ribbon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the Corvane Reach docked at Halloway Ring on Tuesday, and the dockmaster kept us waiting six hours under a sign reading BERTH ASSIGNMENT PENDING in letters the colour of old ketchup. I spent the time counting rivets on the outer hatch, which is what you do when you are homesick and too proud to say so.

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The anchor on the forward ring is not really an anchor. Nobody has dropped one since we left the Vell shipyards, but Captain Oduya keeps the old chain bolted there because, she says, a vessel should know what it is holding onto. The rope wound round it is a cable the engineers have replaced three times. Last cycle a hairline split ran along the third strand, and Pim spent a whole shift splicing it with his jaw clenched and a flask of bitter tea at his elbow.

Yesterday the manifest flagged our cargo for the outer colonies, and I found myself reading the scratched lettering on the cable housing where some crewman, years back, carved one word into the paint. HOME. He was not being sentimental, I think. He just wanted the next watch to know which way was up when the lights went out and the gravity stuttered.

Mum asked if I'd be back for the harvest feast. Tell her the anchor is still bolted down and so, I suppose, am I. We leave for Sorrow Gate at dawn ship time, so this goes out on the courier skiff with the spare gaskets. Keep the porch light on, and please don't let Dad mend the kettle himself.