Tongan Baskets

The local artisans here produce some very nice stuff--wood carving, weaving (baskets and mats), and tapa cloth--are the primary items for sale in the marketplace.

Some Nice Baskets We Bought in October
We had a very old 3-tier set of metal baskets hanging in our galley. I kept garlic in the top basket, onions in the 2nd basket, and bananas in the bottom basket. This is useful storage, and handy to the galley. This basket set has slowly been falling apart over the last 10,000 miles of hard cruising. We replaced the chains between the baskets with line a couple of years ago, when the chains gave out on passage. So I've been on the lookout for a replacement set. I almost bought a couple of plastic baskets in the Chinese Store a couple of months ago.

I'd been eyeing the baskets in the market place, too. But they are too shallow to keep stuff in when we are underway. But after our tour with Primrose, I realized that we could commission pretty much anything we want. Pimmie is one of the foremost basket weavers in the market so we took our old baskets in to show him, and by the next day we had a brand new, slightly bigger, set of Tongan baskets for our galley. And for a very reasonable price.

Dave Mounting Our New Baskets
Our New Galley Baskets
Some More Baskets We Have Bought To Take Home