Let's Go Exploring ... 

"Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek
A newer world, for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts."

- From Ulysses
- by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate
Not everyone wants to fade away into aged retirement, golf and distant memories.
 
A lucky few still yearn for new adventure, to go exploring, seek a unique challenge; one more chance to shine in action, find real meaning and leave a great legacy.
 
Throughout time, exploring has defined us as humans: seeking knowledge, discovering new vistas and sometimes our real nature. "Mankind needs to know" wrote Norwegian explorer Nansen, then making the first crossing of the Greenland icecap in 1888.
 
Today the climate of Greenland, the world's greatest island, is changing faster than anywhere else on earth, reverting to its Medieval Warm Period when Erik the Red's Vikings first arrived in 982AD.
 
Greenland is waiting to be fully discovered, with an untold wealth of science and geography, and now is the time for a new era of voyaging. Is this a challenge you could embrace?
 
Arctic Explorer is a small private group of multi-skilled individuals dedicated to exploring the furthest reaches of Greenland's coastline, to within 10 degrees of the North Pole. Three voyages of about six weeks each, connecting three summer seasons, will cover some 7,000 nautical miles. This will be the most comprehensive single program to fully investigate Greenland's coastal wealth, visiting every hidden fjord, historic site and remote settlement. And to ensure the value of this historic voyage is shared, it will be captured by a professional film crew for worldwide streaming over three seasons.
 
The yacht crew of sailing master, engineer, bosun, medic, cook and scientist will support the voyage Section Leaders who will each undertake individual creative and research projects. We will travel in the traditional way, aboard a sustainable sailing vessel with auxiliary power, totally self-sufficient and equipped for all wilderness situations. Each Section Leader will have full control of the exploration voyage for a five day rotating block, with operational guidance and leadership mentoring from the Chief Expedition Leader.
 
If you feel this could be the great personal opportunity you have been looking for, time and cost contributions are no barrier, and want to be considered for one of the four Section Leader positions per voyage, just 12 in total, then connect for an initial chat with the Chief Expedition Leader, Earle de Blonville, on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/earledeblonville/
Australia's first Arctic expeditions: a remarkable story of passion and focus that continues today.

The first Australian Arctic expedition was a complex $2.5 million program created by Earle de Blonville, FRGS, as a result of a fascinating tale heard during a 1977 winter mountain ascent in Wales.

He led a team of four sea kayaks and a five-man crew aboard a 50' steel ice-reinforced support ketch down 1,000km of Greenland's remote East Coast during the early winter of 1986. His expedition patron was HRH The Prince of Wales (now King Charles II), and his principal British Advisor was Lord Shackleton, FRS, FRGS.

Earle subsequently went on to explore more than half of Greenland's navigable coast during the late 1980's. This included an expedition to the Nussuaq Peninsula specifically for high net worth Australian individuals.

His one-hour television documentary film of the 1986 expedition was released internationally through Discovery Channel, CBC, BBC, ABC and other broadcasters in Europe, South America, Israel and South Africa, and was most recently screened in France and Denmark. See details of his book below. See the film trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CTmDX3Tai0

“Earle de Blonville is a great, but unsung, Australian hero, with outstanding leadership qualifications."
- Professor The Hon. Barry Jones, AC.
Minister for Science 1983-90

* Earle's Arctic exploring yacht 'Eleanor Rymill' among the giant icebergs of the world's fastest flowing glacier.


EARLE DE BLONVILLE, FRGS.
PROJECT FOUNDER

1st AUSTRALIAN ARCTIC FILMING & KAYAK EXPEDITION

Leader, 1985-86, of Australia's first Arctic Expedition, a total voyage of 5,200km in yacht and sea kayaks, which crossed the North Atlantic and explored the hidden coast of East Greenland in early winter.

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1st AUSTRALIAN PRIVATE EXECUTIVE ARCTIC EXPEDITION

Leader, 1988, of Australia's first commercial Arctic expedition for wealthy private adventurers, exploring the central west coast of Greenland aboard my yacht in search of historic explorer's bases.

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1st BRITISH-AUSTRALIAN SAILING EXPEDITION TO WEST GREENLAND

Leader, 1989, of the first joint sailing voyage to locate scientific sites, explore the Nussuaq Peninsula and visit the key fast glaciers of Central and South West Greenland.

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1st COMPLETE SEA KAYAK EXPEDITION TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE TASMANIA

In 1979, with expedition partner John Brewster, completed the first sea kayak circumnavigation of Tasmania, a 1,600km voyage lasting 70 days. Through violent storms, and saving the lives of four divers, we completed Australia's first modern major sea kayak expedition.

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1st SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH EXPEDITION TO GRANITE MOUNTAIN, GIPPSLAND

In 1980, led a 30-strong team of scientists and undergrads on the first complete ecological mapping of a scientifically unknown granitic pluton in Far East Gippsland. In addition to discovering many new species, we also searches for undiscovered Aboriginal cave paintings.

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1st SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH EXPEDITION TO QUAIL CREEK, KIMBERLEY

In 1984, with a co-leader and five adventurers, made the first scientific expedition into the Quail Creek region of the Kimberley wilderness, discovering new insects and plants for the State Museums of Victoria and Western Australia, travelling 11,000km by 4WD and sea plane.

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BOOK image
Savage Coast is an unrivalled story for the highly uncertain futures we face.

Savage Coast offers an almost unrivalled look inside the reality of complex leadership decision-making where almost everything conspires against the expedition’s success, or even its survival. In this story of ongoing crises there are non-stop insights and valuable lessons for those who can expect to be engaged in tomorrow's front-line climate crisis leadership.

Here is the leader’s inside story of Australia’s 1985-86 historic first Arctic expedition, to an uncharted coast in early winter. It’s an epic of what happens to a $2.5 million voyage to the end of the world where all your plans are blown away by a winter hurricane and all that’s left is slow starvation in a soaked sleeping bag on a wave-battered coastal rock, with no possibility of rescue or of your bodies ever being discovered, except by hungry polar bears.


Extract from the first edition cover  ---

"A disabled yacht is towed into a remote Arctic village just as winter begins. It has been drifting amongst offshore reefs in freezing sea fog, as giant icebergs cruised past. The engine no longer works, the radio and compass have failed and the sails and rigging are largely worn out. Aboard is a dispirited crew. They have travelled here from the opposite side of the world, now they are trapped, unable to escape the looming freeze by heading south for somewhere warmer. Beneath the surface of the crew’s brittle cohesion, there are tensions waiting to explode and one member has already erupted in uncontrolled violence. As winter’s first hurricane blasts down from the 10,000-foot high icecap and through the village at 240kph, the die is cast for a journey none of them could have imagined."

Vox Pops

"Timeless insights into the hidden depths of leadership”
-Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Bt, OBE, FRGS, world’s greatest living explorer

“Fully captures the reality of leadership.”
- Dr Iain McCormack, Polar Psychologist

“Deep insights into complexity and unpredictability.”
- Sir Gustav Nossal, Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne

“A masterpiece of exploration by a poet of action” 

- Bill Green, Author and Screenwriter: ‘Terminator 2’.

“An unvarnished record of a major achievement”

- Professor Barry Jones. Australian Minister for Science 1983-90

“A fascinating exploration of an explorer”
- Phillip Adams. International Broadcaster

“Its frankness in describing success and failure sets it apart from leadership books.”
- Jonathan Hutchings, Company Managing Director

“Reveals that leadership cannot be taught, no leader is infallible and there is no single recipe for success.”
- Richard Gilmore, Executive Director: EarthWatch Trust

Selected Reviews

“This book is a powerful account of an expedition that Earle de Blonville led to East Greenland in 1985-86. This is a powerful story of privation, courage, obstinacy and tenacity, full of sharp insights, vividly written, an unvarnished record of a major achievement. The story, with its freshness and immediacy, is timeless, demonstrating what charismatic leadership can achieve, against all odds.”

“This is a brilliant, beautifully written testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. The book tells Earle de Blonville’s own story as the leader of Australia’s first expedition to the Arctic in 1985-86. It illustrates the power of one man’s vision and the courage of the author and his men to rise above extreme adversity to carry it out. It offers rare glimpses into the extraordinary weight of responsibility he shouldered. This book should appeal to anyone seeking to chart a course for themselves or their organization in the rapidly changing uncharted landscape and uncertain futures of our fragile planet.”

“How Earle and his hard-bitten team survive their battle with the elements is nothing short of a miracle. Earle is a fine lyrical writer with enchanting passages on the subtlety and spirituality of polar seascapes. Importantly, he is brutally honest with descriptions of the rawness of basic living in makeshift camps ashore and with the agony of personality clashes. Every nautical mile of this journey is hard-won. For Earle, there could be no turning back.”
Arctic Explorer and Leadership Philosopher Earle de Blonville, FRGS, delivers Leadership lessons drawn from his personal experience of leading Australia's first Arctic expedition, to East Greenland. On this harrowing expedition, everything that could go wrong did so, sometimes more than once. The key lessons de Blonville explains here are that the future is always unknown, uncertain and impossible to be prepared for just by training based on hypotheticals. The single greatest truth revealed is that the only certainty is uncertainty, meaning that Leadership requires being ready for any circumstances, most of them unexpected. This means Leadership is a matter of personal character, flexibility, adaptiveness and courage, not of authority, status or force of personality. The leader must humbly accept that no one can ever be sure that any decisions taken under duress, in the field, are right, reliable or anything more than best guesses. Only time will reveal if they were. As today's Climate Catastrophe increases its grip on our planet, these Leadership Lessons from Hell will become more relevant and valuable.
Find out more in Earle's Leadership Development Programs.