Big day on Nimoa Island. Nimoa is simply lovely. It almost has a tropical resort kind of feel. Neatly swept paths, pretty gardens, frangipani flowering everywhere, neat painted cottages encircling big grassy areas shaded by massive trees, all fringed, of course, by beaches and coral reefs. Nimoa boasts the biggest medical clinic around, but even servicing about 7000 people from the surrounding islands, it only has a handful of nurses and community workers. No doctor. And very limited government funding. Much of the money raised during the rally goes to helping the clinic and maintaining the 'ambulance', which is an old launch out of RPA Yacht Club which used to be the starter boat for yacht races. The boat is generally used to take the nurses to various islands for immunising and other aspects of the Mother-Child Health initiative. In an emergency, it takes people all the way to Alotau, which MUST be a smoother ride than the long boats can provide.

After some lengthy speeches and presentations to the clinic and associated personages, we were treated to a very nice lunch under shady trees, accompanied by the local 'rock band' (I use that term rather loosely) made up of a handful of young men. They certainly had all the gear: keyboard, guitars, amps, a mic, but after a while all the songs started to sound the same. Jamie took the opportunity to commandeer the keyboard and play his own music, much to the laughter and delight of the locals.

After lunch our rally fellows were pitted against the local boys in a very competitive game of soccer. The practiced team of very young boys mostly ran rings around our guys but I think the final score was 2-2. Graeme looked every bit the part out on the field and certainly did his bit. The locals were deemed the winners after officials determined we had way too many Dim Dims on the field. After the soccer the rally women went up against the local girls in a hot game of netball. I held my own in a goal keeper position (for a little while, anyway!) against the fit teenage girls, but they were the clear winners, whilst we staggered away drenched in perspiration.

Lots of laughs on board Smart Choice that night with Rodney and Chris, Andy and Kelli from Quintessa and Rod 'Feathers' and Heather from Psycho Puss.