KEY POINTS:
Will Calver, his wife, Catherine, and their two young sons were undertaking a "half circumnavigation", leisurely sailing their way to New Zealand from England, when they dropped anchor at Bequia in St Vincent and Grenadines.
As they sailed in, a photographer came out in an RIB, took photos
of their yacht and later reappeared, offering to sell them the pictures.
For Calver, it was one of those "eureka" moments. "I could do that," he thought.
It was a timely revelation for, until then, the Calvers' plans had been relatively vague. They had, like so many before them, set sail for New Zealand to seek a new life but with little idea of what that new life might look like.
Calver, an account director for a large London-based direct mail company, had felt himself in a rut. He was sick of the hours of commuting and the time spent away from his family.
He was expressing this frustration during a meal out with Catherine when he suddenly declared: "I've always dreamed of sailing off on my own boat."
Luckily, Catherine was not averse to the idea and the pair was soon wrapped up in the business of selling their house and searching for the "ideal" boat.
It was a lengthy process and 12 months passed before they found it: a Holman and Pye-designed steel cutter, aptly named Finale. The yacht was lying in Belgium and Calver sailed it home to Kent just one week after the birth of their second son, Patrick.
In May 2003, the couple, together with sons Patrick, now 2, and Thomas, 6, headed off on a journey with no fixed plans - a voyage that would take 18 months and end with a new career in a city literally half a world away.
Like all such voyages, the Calvers' was not without mishap. A broken generator kept them in Colon, Panama, for a month. A leaking stern gland forced them to abandon a visit to the Tuamotus.
They suffered an infestation by cockroaches and, 200 miles off the Colombian coast, encountered knife-wielding, balaclava-clad fishermen.
As it turned out, they really were fishermen. The knives were out because they were trying to retrieve fishing buoys caught around Finale's keel and they were wearing balaclavas because it was cold.
All of which, in an area where pirates had recently been reported, came as a great relief to the young family.
However, their adventures in the area didn't end there. Fifty miles further on, in 25 knots of wind, more buoys became wrapped round their keel and the bilge started filling with water that had come down the hawse pipe.
Of course, the lows were countered by highs: the San Blas Islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama, which the Calvers describe as "true paradise"; the Galapagos Islands and Vava'u in Tonga were just a few of their favourite places.
When the Calvers were planning their trip, they felt that to completely circumnavigate the globe was too big a deal, particularly with two small boys. They therefore decided to aim either for Australia or New Zealand.
As Catherine explains: "Both speak English and, since I am a nurse, I could work in either. However, I had been to both, several years before, and felt New Zealand to be a better place for our children and us."
It was decision the couple did not regret: "When we arrived, we fell in love with the country and decided to stay. We love Auckland, its smallness (compared with London) and the fact that its small population means most people within a community, such as the sailing one, know one another."
By the time the pair arrived in New Zealand, the idea that had been born in Bequia had matured into a proper plan (although only, apparently, after "countless hours of soul searching, on many moonlit nights, on several ocean passages ... ").
Keen to own his own business and to combine his twin passions of sailing and photography, Calver realised he could do what the itinerant cameraman in the Caribbean was doing, only better and on a larger scale.
After all, he was headed for the City of Sails.
Although Calver had studied photography, he had never worked as a professional photographer. He hadn't sailed halfway around the world before either, so this didn't faze him. Within six weeks of arriving in New Zealand, Ocean Photography was up and running.
Calver initially worked from The Waterfront Cafe in the Viaduct, shooting Sail NZ trips and most Wednesday and Friday night races.
He quickly became a familiar face on the harbour, "that crazy man whizzing about on the water" in his yellow wet weather gear, harnessed into an RIB, tiller in one hand, camera in the other.
Calver has now covered almost all the major nautical events in and around Auckland and has been the official photographer for four World Sailing Championships so far this year.
In October 2006, the Calvers opened Ocean Gallery, on the corner of Quay and Hobson streets, alongside the National Maritime Museum.
The gallery combines Calver's marine-based photographs and the marine-based watercolour and oil paintings of Doug Horman.
The gallery also completes something of a circle for the new marine photographer.
His mother and stepfather worked at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and the young Calver spent many of his formative years there: his playground was the famous Shackleton ship, James Caird.
These days his playground is also his office: a harbour and a gulf - 12,000 miles and half a circumnavigation away.
