Crossed Anchors on the webbing between the thumb and index fingers marked a bos’n’s (or boatswain’s) mate. A Harpoon marked a member of the fishing fleet. Hold written on one set of knuckles and Fast written on the other was meant to give a sailor good grip in the rigging. A Rope tattooed around the wrist meant that a seaman is a deckhand. A Sparrow or aSwallow tattoo would go to a sailor for every 5,000 nautical miles they traveled–a swallow because it can always find its way home.
