Murder in paradise.

There's quite the community here in Vava'u, Tonga with a bay full of yotties and a village full of Pelangies, aka white incomers who run many of the local businesses. Every morning there's a half hour radio Net of Who's New; Who's Leaving; What's Happening; Services available, Weather and of course, the Market Report.

Hearing this last item my ears pricked up ever hopeful that my star stock picks, Dell and Worldcom had miraculously made a return, but no, instead of " the Dow is up 10 points" it was, we've got fresh carrots, cabbage and some tuna.

"And following on from the price of carrots, this is the Vava'u police, can anybody help us apprehend an absconder?"

The absconder who had allegedly murdered his wife on board their yacht a couple of months ago after being seen and heard having a bit of a domestic on the dock escaped from prison last night. Well, apparently he broke his word of honour ( from a guy apparently facing a potential death penalty?) and left the police station where he'd been allowed out his cell to get a bit less heat and a bit more space, crept through the village and got back to his Crime Scene taped off boat, Sea Oak, and sailed off into the dark."

When the cops arrived at the station after breakfast. Ooop's! Where'd he go?

An ocean chase ensued and the cops caught up but the police announcement this morning was that he was resisting arrest with knives, an axe, a flare gun and a petrol bomb. "Anyone who can help please call......,.to help bring back boat and body."

The last word more driven by poor translation than fact. (I can imagine our pal Huw already taking notes) as we know he's still at large.

All very exciting in a sleepy island. This was almost the last we heard until our tour guide happened by as we wandered down the street to the plantation for our 10am tour.

He was just back from delivering his rifle and bullets to the police as his contribution to the big chase. Unfortunately in a Key Stone Cops scenario the forces of law and order ran out of petrol and yer man sailed off over the horizon and hasn't been seen since!

Murder polis as they say in Scotland.

Anyway, today was Torment-The-Whales.com day kicking off at 06:45 on the tour boat dock. The good news is that in Vava'u you don't need an alarm clock. If the barking mental dogs don't wake you and you mentally hit "Snooze", next up is the church bells. All of this before 5am. Punch Snooze again but last up is morning prayers and of course their 200 person choir giving it laldy!

So, prompt at crack of the dawn chorus we joined four others and headed out to sea. It wasn't before long that " Thar she blows" had us near capsize the wee tin can with 200hp as all six went to one side to see where a whale might have been.

We did this a few more times then finally, a giant flipper appeared just ahead and old Jonah set too smacking the surface with a lot of noise and slapping of his, well, arms, whatever the call them.

Next up is, "right guys, in the water". (Anne's favourite bit).

And so we swam off to intercept mum and baby as they floated around. Eerily, through the depths you could hear the whale song, the high pitched tweets of the young and the rumbling moans if the adults which reverberated so loudly you could feel it loosening the muck in your chest. A spectacular sight and sound show but I couldn't get rid of the feeling we were just tormenting them. However, I guess they were happy our boat didn't have either a grizzled, bearded seaman hanging onto a 15 foot harpoon on the bow and our boat didn't have Japanese writing on the side.

Tonga is supposed to be the only place in the world where you can swim with whales. I suspect that's just cause the environmentalists haven't caught up yet. Hopefully we didn't do any harm, perhaps caused some interest in their otherwise dull long days and if one of my three cameras had worked, you might even have got a pic!

One of our NBF's onboard with a camera the size of a football is sending me a copy so that will follow soon.