The Southern Lagoon encompasses a large area inside the reef surrounding the southern coast of Grande Terre. It is a shallow area full of small islands and coral reefs. The water is beautiful and the islands fascinating. We selected several islands to visit in the Southern Lagoon, starting with Ilot Mato.

Ilot Mato has two narrow passes that bring you into a small anchorage of nominally 15-20ft depth. You are surrounded by reef and a small island off to one side. It is a great experience anchor in these settings. We ran into our friends on SV Saroni, and caught up with their travels since we last saw them in New Zealand. The snorkeling around the reefs was great, and we found an amazing section of coral with outstanding colors, fish, and other creatures that kept us staring in amazement. We had a great, calm night at anchor.

The next morning we decided we would leave for Ilot Kouare, at the southwestern corner of the Southern Lagoon. We were having a wonderful motor-sail when …. the Genset shutdown giving us a temperature fault. I checked the coolant level and … the reservoir was empty. I opened the Genset to find coolant everywhere! I won’t repeat the words coming from Cindy’s mouth because I don’t want to damage her reputation. I made the decision to head to Noumea, where I knew we would have the resources to once again, address the problem. Looking at where we were (about 50nm from Noumea) and the time (10:30AM) that it was meant that we needed to sail quickly to get into the harbour before nightfall. No problem, we hoisted the spinnaker and had a fabulous sail at 8kts to Noumea. On the way back, we called our Agent at Noumea Yacht Services and a friend at Noumea Ocean to see if they could work some magic and find us a berth at one of the two Marinas. We were fortunate to have the Dock Captain at Marina du Sud go above and beyond to make a space for us and meet us at the dock as we arrived at 4:30PM. We go situated and connected to shore power, meaning that Cindy didn’t have to “rough it” again in energy conservation mode. We also were able to make arrangements for a diesel mechanic to meet us the following morning to figure out what had happened and more importantly why it keeps happening!

The next morning I got the Genset pulled out and we began the process of troubleshooting (for the third time this season) where the leak was (this time). After filling the reservoir with some water, we were able to spot the leak - yes, it was right where it had been the last two times. I was astonished when I reached in and pulled off the hose clamp - it had broken! The brand new one that we had replaced in Vanuatu! What was going on! The mechanic confirmed that the hose clamp was a high quality one and so we needed to figure out why they were breaking. After removing the heat exchanger, we began to get a better picture of the root cause of the cooling system failures we have had during the season.

Evidently when the heat exchanger had been removed for cleaning 2 seasons ago in New Zealand, it had not been put back in place properly. Instead of resting on a rubber pad at the back end (like it was at the front end), it was resting directly on a metal support. AND, there were two hose clamps holding the heat exchanger in place in the front and none holding it in place on the support in the rear. We inspected the heat exchanger to make sure there was no damage to it and replaced the rubber pad (it had come unglued). We used zip ties to hold the pads in place and then used the hose clamps to hold the heat exchanger in place on the pads and support. This way the hose clamp holding the hose wouldn’t vibrate against the metal and break the hose clamp! Of course all of this was going on back in an area that was 1) out of sight and 2) next to impossible to get your hands - which explains why it wasn’t put back together correctly and why we hadn’t “noticed” it before.

If you think I might be a little gun shy about our cooling circuit you can understand why! Now add to that the fact that we had an 800nm passage coming up to Australia, with the forecast for light winds and lots of motoring! The fact that we were able to find (what seemed to be?) a likely cause for the failures was the only thing that gave me the confidence to depart (and as you now know we arrived Australia with no issues).