There been ANOTHER murdur!

Well, nearly. The guy on the catamaran right next to us runs his on deck, Honda generator all day every day. He fired it up at 07:00 this morning and little does he know it but he nearly joined Vava'u's murder statistics.

It's the start of the Vava'u Blue Water Rally week here so consequently the bay is full of yotties all honing their boats and bodies for the last trip to head south out the cyclone zone before mid - end November. Anything to keep the insurance valid.

As part of the honing our bodies element an exercise and nutrition programme has been developed by the sponsors. Firstly, for the exercise element, one needs to row ashore, largely as ones Suzuki outboard is kaput, and for the nutritional part of the programme, indulge in the unlimited bacon, egg, tomatoes and toast in the morning with Happy Hours every night.

Tonga is one of the two options for jumping off to New Zealand. The other being Fiji. The challenge is that the weather patterns that roar and scream along the underside of Australia in the 40's and 50's latitudes respectively, bend north across New Zealand right into your path thus making getting south a bit of a pain. The key apparently is reading and interpreting the weather files accurately and getting the weather window spot on so that's now the new religion; checking in daily to see what's coming from above and below the horizon. Either that or we'll just follow Trevor and Jan who know what they're doing. (Come back soon guys!).

Anne has gone for the spiritual option joining a few other cruisers to visit yesterdays Sunday service, or Sing-Alonga-Tonga as it might also be known. I stayed behind to slap on some more varnish and these guys could really pump out the volume. In the end I had to just sit back and enjoy the sounds......for a couple of minutes, then I whacked on Meatloaf on my iPod. Much more to my liking.

Anyway, back to the Rally. Other than the social events we've had the New Zealand bio-police here giving us a talk on what we can and can't bring into the country. Fortunately, if it's in a tin you're OK and that's our style and indeed expertise as far as cooking is concerned. The marina operators are touting for business and offering helpful advice on their location and wide range of repair services so you can take your ocean battered boat and equally battered wallet and leave them to it.

Vava'u is filling up with familiar faces, cruisers we've met along the way, either in anchorages, boozers or like all good Silver Surfers, in the virtual world via the daily Nets. It's quite the reunion for all those who've conversed on the daily Nets and bumped into and socialised with each other for the last 9 months or more.

It could be a hard week.