Traditional style full sleeve tattoo on an upper arm and forearm, with a ship, swallows, a shark, a pin-up and banner lettering, shown in three photographs.

Traditional sailor full sleeve in three views

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

Three photographs show a full sleeve covering the upper arm and forearm, with a dense field of small black stars across the skin. The design includes a ship in full sail, a pin-up figure, a shark, swallows, a butterfly, roses, a heart, a nautical star and scroll banners with lettering, all in bold black outlines. Red, green, yellow and blue fills dominate the colour work, with a small amount of grey shading.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ivy,

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We raised the Horn on Tuesday in a sleet that turned the rigging to glass, and Captain Vane had the topmen out for six hours, which is how I know the Marguerite is still a proper ship and not a coal hulk with sails for show. You asked whether I have stopped gambling. I have not, but I have stopped playing the cards you sent with the tin of barley sugar, because the Mate says they are unlucky when a sweetheart gives them. I keep them in my sea chest wrapped in oilcloth. They are the ace of hearts and the nine of spades, and I look at them when the watch is dull.

Last Sunday a shark followed us up from the Canaries for three days. Bosun Hale swore it was the same one that took a cook off the Lydia in '09, and he would not let the lads fish for it. The cook threw the scraps over the side and the thing turned, slow as a funeral, and went back under. Hale said that was the sea settling a debt. I said the sea does not keep books.

Two swallows came out of the fog this morning and skimmed the bow. Hale says a swallow on the rigging means a sailor has come five thousand miles and will see home again, so I have told the men we are nearly there. We are not nearly there. We are four weeks off Portsmouth at best. But I wanted you to know that when the swallows came, I thought of your kitchen window and the kettle, and I was glad of the lie.

Your loving brother, Ned

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