Weekend Read: The Fisherman Who Became a Furniture Maker at 60

For four decades, Opuene Wonodi's life followed the rhythm of the tides. He fished the creeks before dawn and sold his catch by mid-morning, the same routine his father had followed before him.

At 60, arthritis in his hands made long hours paddling too painful to continue. Rather than retire quietly, he picked up carpentry, a skill he had only ever practiced repairing his own canoes.

Today, his small workshop produces handcrafted furniture inspired by canoe design, benches with curved hulls for legs, tables shaped like paddle blades, that has found a following among visitors and diaspora buyers alike.

'The water gave me forty years of work. I didn't expect it to give me a second career too, but here we are,' he said, sanding a bench in the afternoon light of his workshop.