Many people have aspirations that are never achieved, but on Monday, November 10, Jim Ball, a member of the Rotary Club of Saundersfoot, gave the club a fascinating insight into the journey of a lifetime undertaken by Jim and his wife Caroline.

Jim was born and brought up in Nottinghamshire and from an early age was influenced by his grandparents and in particular his grandfathers, who both served during the First World War. It was therefore particularly poignant for Jim to mention his grandfathers at the start of his presentation on the day before Armistice Day 2014.

Jim was brought up in a working environment and started work as an apprentice engineer with Raleigh in Nottingham, but later transferred to BT where he worked as an engineer. His passion in those days was scuba diving and in 1991 he met Caroline who wanted to learn how to scuba dive and in 1995 they married.

By this time, Jim was working for British Aerospace and Caroline was teaching; life was good. They generated sufficient money to think about buying a boat, but there was no meaningful internet in those days and trying to find the boat of their dreams proved to be more difficult than expected.

Eventually, after a long search period, they found a catamaran in France that fitted the bill. It was purchased, dismantled and transported by road to the UK, where Jim used his engineering skills to totally refit the boat, below and above deck, with additional strengthening to the hulls and other structural parts of the boat. Eventually their joint efforts reached a satisfactory conclusion and they were ready to start their circumnavigation of the world.

On September 4, 1999, they set sail from Britain on a journey that they thought would take them away for two years, but in reality took nine years. They crossed the Bay of Biscay heading for Bayonne and, like many sailors before them, encountered gale force conditions, which tested the mettle of the boat and the spirits of Jim and Caroline. This was to be the first of many storm conditions they encountered on their travels.

From Bayonne, they travelled to Madeira and the Canary Islands, before heading for Cape Verde. They left Cape Verde to cross the Atlantic and expected good weather, but instead had four days and nights of force 10 gales and were struck by a rogue wave. Eventually they arrived in Barbados and then travelled through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean.

They next arrived at the Galapagos Islands at a time when there were strict restrictions on landing and staying on the islands. It was now 2001 and they travelled on to the islands of Samoa and Fiji. From here, due to tropical storms, they were driven to New Zealand, where they stayed for two months to carry out repairs to their boat.

After leaving New Zealand, they encountered a Tropical Disturbance, but thankfully safely reached Tonga, before setting sail for Australia, where they stayed for18 months. Their next stop was at Port Resolution Bay on the Island of Vanuatu, where they became enthralled with the simplicity of life and the generosity of the people. Vanuatu sits where the Atlantic and Pacific plates meet and is affected by tectonic movements in the area, but the people seem resilient to whatever life throws at them.

The next leg of their journey took them to the Solomon Islands and Philippine Islands, then Malaysia, before travelling through the Suez Canal and starting the final leg of the journey back home to Britain.

Members of the Rotary Club of Saundersfoot were amazed at the achievements of Jim and Caroline and the way their experiences had influenced the way in which they looked at the important things in life.

Club president Neil Sefton thanked Jim for sharing his photographs and memories with the club and hoped that he would provide more detail of the final section of the journey at another occasion.