coracle

On the beach, men and women talked in the lilting tones of spoken Vietnamese while repairing circular coracles, the basket-like boats that have been used here for centuries.

He writes: “On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.”

The experience was so fulfilling I made a second trip the following winter, travellingthrough Wales in a coracle.

Their boats were coracles woven of reed, and it was a brave sailor who would go as far as Gosk or Kornay in such a craft.

The last coracle shed in England, where the circular boats were made for use along the River Severn, is to be restored and opened to the public.