ORI Story

Oceanic Research Institute officially DEAD on April 7, 2024 by voluntary revocation.

UPDATE September 2023: The Schooner ‘La Boheme’, the “flagship” of Oceanic Research Institute, has followed Earl’s sailboat ‘Courage’ into the landfill in Denmark. After ten years of failure to pay any of the fees and charges owed to the shipyard where La Boheme was abandoned, the sad schooner is being sliced up with a chainsaw and hauled away. Click here for a synopsis of events. Here’s a video of the chainsaw action: https://faa.dk/video/faa/video-on-demand/866ac887-a47f-41bb-b7d3-d25fe5da241d and the article in English is here: https://earldeblonville.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/La-Boheme-cut-up-destroyed-news-article-and-video.pdf

UPDATE July 2023Earl de Blonville is no longer an Adjunct Professional Fellow at Southern Cross University, NSW. Jennifer Gidley is no longer an Adjunct Full Professor at SCU. The website for Oceanic Research Institute has gone dark. Earl no longer mentions ORI on his LinkedIn site. Gidley makes no mention of ORI in her online bios. The entire ORI/SCU “Save the Ocean with electric sailboats” scam appears to be kaput. Over the course of 6 years, ORI accomplished none of its promised goals.

The Oceanic Research Institute (ORI), was based in Ballina, NSW, Australia. Earle de Blonville and his girlfriend, Jennifer Gidley, Directors of ORI lived in Lismore, NSW. They no longer live in Lismore. ORI has no publicly apparent employees, office, address, or phone number. ORI has no research vessels, has conducted no research, published no papers. Earl de Blonville claims on his LinkedIn page to have founded ORI in January of 2013, yet ORI only received non-profit status in 2017. In its three years of financial reporting to the ACNC (2019-2021) ORI has reported receiving roughly $165k AUD in private donations and spent all that and more. Jennifer Gidley is the owner of “La Boheme”. “Courage”, de Blonville’s sailboat, was declared derelict in July 2022 and destroyed at taxpayer expense by the local government in Rudkobing, Denmark. La Boheme and Courage were touted as the ORI “fleet” and upgrading them was the prime focus of fundraising.
ORI logo: Click image for ORI website

If you are considering donating funds to the Oceanic Research Institute (ORI), please read THIS  FIRST. These are requests for tax-deductible donations to repair and refurbish privately-owned vessels.

COURAGE: July 2022, Earl de Blonville’s “bioacoustic research vessel” being destroyed at public expense after being abandoned for the last decade.

ORI claims “we operate as a transparent, ethical organisation, governed by strong principles and values” (ORI website) is challenged by these four facts: 1. Neither “research vessel” sailboat is currently in Australia or has ever functioned as a research vessel, 2: both sailboats, for which funding is sought are the private property of the ORI directors, 3: images of the sailboats used to garner donations are clearly disingenuous and misrepresent the ACTUAL condition and location of the sailboats (scroll down) and 4: the Approved Research Institute, tax-exempt status requires all donations to be used for research, not improving private property or travel expenses to conferences where ORI staff are marketing their aspirations, not presenting a research paper.

While it is technically feasible to have a fully electric sailboat, both of ORI’s sailboats have diesel motors and generators and would need extensive and expensive conversion to electric. Solar panels would be unreliable for charging anything other than house demand (lights, comms). Recharging while under sail, using the prop as a turbine, is also feasible but the bottom line is that if your batteries drain, you and your schedule of research are subordinate to recharging, whatever that takes.

ORI claims electric propulsion is critical to avoid “acoustic trauma” to marine mammals. Multiple authorities on marine mammal acoustic research confirm that the sound of a diesel engine does not come anywhere close to causing “acoustic trauma”. The real premise (and marketing strategy) of ORI is environmental “purity”, not practical or efficient use of funds to do research. Given the ORI claims of “zero carbon and acoustic emissions,” one presumes that the Directors of ORI travel exclusively on bicycles, eschew air travel, and consume only food grown in Australia and distributed by horse cart. However attractively “green” the idea of electric sailboats may be, donors should ask themselves if this is a case of “making a silk purse from a sow’s ear”.

So when ORI seeks donations because “Our research vessels will need some more maintenance next year” they are intentionally deceiving the public. The vessels are not now and have never been “research vessels”. This claim is pure marketing hyperbole and intention. They will become “research vessels” only if the Directors can convince private donors to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for upgrading their personal property. If ORI continues to use donations for non-research related expenses, they should publicly clarify why that is not a conflict of interest and illegal. And let there be no doubt, I am not a “climate denier”. I grew up with marine biologist and a geologist brothers and, at 72, have been aware of the dangers of both climate change and major earthquakes for my adult life.

There are plenty of genuine, established research projects which can use your donations. Do your research before donating.

ORI ABANDONS OZ?

UPDATE January 2020: With Australian bushfires focusing the country’s attention on the challenge of climate change, you might think that ORI’s pleas for donations to combat climate change would be productive. But ORI has been unsuccessful convincing Aussie government, business and public to donate funds to “upgrade” and refit their private sailboats so that ORI can “save the ocean”. ORI wonders if they are “wasting” their time in Australia and asks the public’s opinion whether they should abandon Oz for Europe because, unlike Aussies, Europeans will be supportive.

ORI Story:

Earl(e)  de Blonville’s latest scheme (see more below) is the Ballina, NSW based non-profit charity “Oceanic Research Institute” or “ORI”Facebook page here. Twitter page here. He has enlisted his girlfriend, Dr. Jennifer Gidley as partner in this scheme. For the story of Earl/Earle name change, click here.

ORI’s purpose is nothing less than to save the ocean (and by extension, the planet) through the topical application of aging wooden sailboats which have been electrified.

Earle de Blonville is listed as the “CEO” and skipper of both of the ships discussed below. He allows no one to forget that he is an “FRGS” (Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society). To be an FRGS you need a: an interest in Geography b: a pulse and c: 110 GBP per year dues. 

In the documents submitted to Southern Cross University in support of his application for adjunct professor Earl claims that his FRGS is the equivalent, in the British Education system, of a MA Degree in Geography. The administration at Royal Geographical Society says that is entirely false. Earle made the same false claims on his application to CISRO for “Approved Research Institute” status.

Jennifer Gidley is listed as “Director of Research” in spite of having no academic background or apparent experience in “Oceanic Research”. Gidley’s Ph.d is in “Future Studies“. 

ORI is posited on the claim that decades-old traditional wooden sailboats are more “sustainable” and appropriate to marine research than modern vessels. 

In September 2017 Earle de Blonville and his girlfriend Jennifer Gidley were appointed Adjunct Full Professors at Southern Cross University (SCU) in Lismore NSW. Adjunct Professor requires, according to SCU public policy, credentials equal to an accredited Ph.d. By August 2, 2018, and after questions were raised about the veracity of his credentials, Earle de Blonville was demoted to Adjunct Professional Fellow, the lowest rank, with no explanation beyond that it was “more appropriate”. The appointments were directly linked to a business relationship de Blonville hoped to establish between SCU and ORI. 

ORI, as a charity, has been approved for Designated Grant Recipient (DGR) and Approved Research Institute (ARI) status by the Australian Tax Office. The ARI status more narrowly defines how donated funds must be used. A Research Committee of academics must approve how donated funds are spent and they must be spent for research. So far, ORI’s largest publicly acknowledged donation (from a brewery for $5000) appears to have been spent sending de Blonville and Gidley to a conference in Noumea and is otherwise intended for repair work on the sailboats. ORI’s current public funds appeals all talk about needing to fix the two privately owned sailboats. No research. 

To recap: ORI is owned and operated by two people with no credentials typically associated with oceanic research. The directors claim ORI has existed for 6 years (Earl claims 9 years on his LinkedIn page) though it has only been registered as a company for two years. In a recent LinkedIn entry, de Blonville made this claim: “While ORI is an advancement of an earlier project (Arctic Climate Leadership Challenge), preparations for ORI began in earnest in 2013 with purchase and work on our tow (sic) research vessels.”

Arctic Climate Leadership Challenge (ACLC) never did anything except create a website and fail to attract funding. ORI has not done anything but attempt (and so far) fail to attract funding. 

ORI briefly rented (then abandoned in 2019) a store front at the Ballina Ramada Hotel and tried to sell books written by the two owners. The books do not deal with oceanic research.

ORI has never done ANY oceanic research, ever, period. 

What Gidley and de Blonville HAVE done is create a blizzard of retweets and a few original tweets to gain visibility in the ocean climate science community and drive efforts to get donated funds. Oceanic Research Institute created a twitter account (@researchoceanic) in October, 2018 and has, as of April 25, 2019,”tweeted” 794 times. Of that number, 635 are “retweets” of other people’s comments or news about climate change and oceanography.  (Earl de Blonville was recently, permanently banned from Twitter at his personal account).

Since the two ships, La Boheme and Carola are core to the operations of ORI, let’s examine their history and current status. 

Carola/Courage: as currently represented on ORI’s Linkedin page: 

and the ORI website

These two pictures (above) were taken long before Earle de Blonville owned the Carola. 

These pictures, below, taken January 2019 in Rudkobing, Denmark are Carola/Courage as she actually is. Note the damaged bow.

That damage is why Earle de Blonville could buy the Carola for one euro. 

Carola/Courage has been destroyed and sent to the landfill as of July, 2022.

This ship has had a number of names. It was Carola when owned by the Reith family for 25 years who then sold it to a German Youth Sailing Organization in 1996. Carola suffered significant damage in a collision in 2012 and the sailing organization opted to take the insurance money to use for their other ship. So Carola was purchased for one Euro by Earle de Blonville in 2013 with the promise he would repair it. Mr. de Blonville now calls it the Courage, (except for when he was trying to sell it in December of 2016 as a fixer-upper). The ORI page gives the impression that she is in serviceable condition. According to Phillip Reith Carola is a “wreck” and de Blonville a “total crook”. Mr. de Blonville tried to sell the boat back to Reith for far more than one Euro. Rebuffed, he appealed to Reith to give him money to restore the ship, based on the family history. Reith instead offered to fund a dignified destruction of a ship beyond repair. Mr. de Blonville’s reaction was to lash out at Mr. Reith on this web page (which tells some of the history about the Carola and her condition). 

If Carola is ever to sail again she will need major renovation (Mr. de Blonville has publicly claimed he will invest 3 million dollars!). de Blonville claims, without any evidence, that Danish authorities stole 100,000.00 dollars of his possessions from the boat including her rigging, electronics, etc. This begs the question of why, if components of the ship were that valuable, the sailing organization didn’t “part her out” and use the money to maintain their other ship the “Zuversicht”. Mr. de Blonville blames everyone besides himself for the current condition of Carola (the harbormaster, the Danish Government, and Mr. Reith). None of this explains what happened to the restoration funds Mr. de Blonville claimed to have when he bought the boat. And all this makes this quote by de Blonville particularly ironic. “Of course, we can never really own a great classic boat: we can only enjoy being the caretakers of maritime history. And in doing so, we become a part of that history, a privilege that ensures the vessel is kept alive with all its stories and significance for future generations”. Earl de Blonville 

Given that “Courage” has been unmaintained for 10 years, one wonders where the $3 million will come from. One also wonders how many used sailboats in great working condition could be purchased for 3 million dollars. 

Tarnan/La Boheme owned by Jennifer Gidley:

The La Boheme is moored in Svendborg, Denmark. In July of 2021 the local newspaper did a series of articles investigating how and why the La Boheme has sat for seven years unattended and unmaintained. The shipyard claims that Dr. Gidley has not paid any of the money owed for repair work and mooring fees in that time. The newspaper also covered the Carola and its abandonment by Earle de Blonville in Rudkobing, Denmark. The main article is here: https://issuu.com/kentmadin/docs/fyns_amts_main_article_henrik

Here’s Tarnan/La Boheme in Summer 2014, repaired after nearly sinking under Mr. de Blonville’s command.

On January 21, 2020 ORI presented images that are 6-7 years old in this tweet and this tweet. (the two referenced tweets no longer have images because ORI closed their Pinterest account).

La Boheme as she ACTUALLY IS as of today, January 21, 2020, bowsprit broken:

The next three images taken September, 2019. The first image is of the starboard side of La Boheme. “Oceanic Research Institute” clearly is not printed on the side. 

Here’s a promotional picture of Tarnan (from before Gidley purchased it and renamed it) on the ORI twitter page. 

“Oceanic Research Institute”, “La Boheme”, “Jersey” and a Jersey Red Ensign have been photoshopped onto the picture

Jennifer Gidley, Earle de Blonville’s girlfriend, with no prior experience in sailing or boat ownership (especially on large, old traditional sailboats) purchased the Tarnan in 2011 from the Warnholtz family of Gothenberg, Sweden. The claim is that she saw the boat for sale in a magazine and, inspired, bought it. Gidley bought Tarnan in May of 2011 for a new, profit-making program teaching top businessmen how to be better leaders. This new program,  9sails.com was a pipe dream and never came close to happening. The website, 9sails.com, was previously archived at the Wayback Machine but Earl de Blonville went through the process to have all archived records of the site expunged. Earl de Blonville claims, without evidence, that IBM had signed up to send their executives and then backed out. Gidley and de Blonville took possession of the Tarnan and intended to sail it to Denmark for refitting into a floating seminar yacht. The ship nearly sank under de Blonville’s captaining. According to others on board during the ill-fated crossing to Denmark, Earl was clearly in charge of all things nautical and Ms. Gidley, who had spent 100’s of thousands of dollars on the ship, was just a passenger. Hours after leaving Gothenberg Tarnan had to be was rescued by the Danish Navy. The passenger who took this video describes the ship as “sinking”. de Blonville himself has confided “we nearly lost her”. The ship was the core of the 9sails program, a business for teaching already wealthy businessmen how to be better leaders. No programs were ever run but they had already purchased logoed rainwear. Three of the most prominent “adjunct faculty” listed on the website claim no knowledge of the program. By January of 2014 the ship, now renamed La Boheme, was on the market (confirmed by multiple potential buyers). Unsuccessful at selling the La Boheme, the “flagship” of ORI has sat in Svendborg harbor in Denmark since 2013. Moving it from Denmark to Australia will require a competent crew and considerable expense. The two professional crew that de Blonville recruited for 9sails.com were an experienced German sailmaster and the former commandant of the Norwegian Naval Academy who characterized de Blonville as a “megalomaniac” whose lack of leadership skills would have precluded his consideration as a Norwegian naval officer.

Here is the rationale for renaming the Tarnan: “But to Dr Gidley, there was just one small issue to resolve: the name. As many old sailors will attest, some boats have powerful souls: you can sense it a mile off and feel it as soon as you step aboard. Dr Gidley felt that Tärnan’s name belonged to Pelle’s heart (deceased previous owner) and that it should remain with him. To her, the vessel’s feminine lines and flirtatious sailing spirit called for a suitable new name: one that appealed to European romantic sensibilities and reflected her worldly essence. And so she became La Bohème, ‘The Bohemian’ (unconventional, artistic, creative, free of old restrictions), an inspired choice for a new life which all have since applauded.”

(I have been unable to locate any of the “all” who have “applauded” and would love to hear from an “old sailors” who can substantiate this rationale for renaming.)

For perspective, Ms. Gidley had spent barely 24 hours aboard her purchase and in that time she experienced near sinking, Danish Navy rescue, collision with another ship entering harbor, deep acrimony between Gidley/de Blonville and most of the other people on board including professional crew and the epiphany that she would be spending many thousands more Euros to make Tarnan seaworthy. Little wonder then, that she intuited the ship’s “flirtatious” spirit and renamed her La Boheme. 

Multiple Schemes in the last 18 years:

Earle de Blonville has a history of spruiking grand schemes involving sailing ships and leadership, all with himself as the guru and central figure. None of those previous schemes ever proceeded past a nice website and unsuccessful efforts to raise funds. Arcticexplorer.com (listed as beginning in 2010) was an Arctic version of 9sails.com, where wealthy businessmen would learn “leadership” from de Blonville at 100k dollars per person. Arcticexplorer.net (listed as existing for 6 years) was a program to take high school students on expeditions to Greenland and train them to be future climate change policy “influencers”. These are audacious programs with de Blonville as the creative force. None of them happened. That did not stop de Blonville from representing them on his CV as if they were ongoing, multi-year programs. Then there was 9sails.com offered in 2013. The program purported to teach already successful businessmen how to be “leaders” in the style of Earle de Blonville, himself, arguably a failed businessman. Here’s an example of the kind of verbal balderdash that “customers” were asked to swallow: “Embarking on your voyage of Postformal Leadership represents a freedom to develop as a leader at your own pace within an enhanced consciousness of your own emergence.”

That’s three distinct programs all following the same model and all came to naught. ORI is de Blonville’s fourth such program whose story is just unfolding. 

NOTE: Until late 2019, the websites of arcticexplorer.com, arcticexplorer.net, 9sails.com, earldeblonville.com (Earle de Blonville’s ORIGINAL website) were all archived over the span of roughly ten years at archive.org (Wayback Machine). de Blonville has now gone to the considerable trouble of demanding that those archives be destroyed. He has intentionally obliterated the online records of his own professional history.

Earl de Blonville and Southern Cross University:

In addition to the multiple failed schemes described above, Earle de Blonville has been trying, since 2008, to gain academic credibility for himself and his concept of “Postformal Leadership”. “Postformal Leadership” is a term that de Blonville just made up with little or no presence in the literature, other than circular references back to de Blonville. In other words, de Blonville has declared himself an authority on an obscure field of study he invented. Earl did not graduate from his high school, Ballarat School, and has no traditional academic credentials beyond second year of high school. No college time, no BA, no MA. He is, apparently, a certified practitioner of a scientifically dubious discipline called Neurolinguistic Programming. In 2008 Earl enrolled in Rushmore University, an unaccredited online university commonly understood to be a “diploma mill” and sought a Ph.d on the subject “Seventh Journey”. This is also the title of his self-published book about leadership. According to Rushmore, de Blonville completed his assignments (such as they were) and would have received his degree if he had paid the tuition he owed. Three years later in 2011, Earl applied to a Ph.d program at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where his new girlfriend, Jennifer Gidley, was on the faculty. de Blonville was accepted in spite of his lack of traditional credentials and his thesis was on “Postformal Leadership”. No mention of his previous tenure at Rushmore was on his CV. After questions were raised about the vetting process and the veracity of de Blonville’s CV, he left RMIT without a degree and under murky circumstances. In RMIT documents obtained through the FOIA process de Blonville himself refers to being “kicked out”.

In 2017 de Blonville and Gidley moved to Lismore, NSW and convinced the administration of Southern Cross University to grant them both adjunct Full Professorships. Jennifer Gidley was previously on the faculty of SCU from 1995-2002. It is clear from internal documents obtained through a GIPA (FOIA) request that those appointments were integrally linked to the creation of Oceanic Research Institute with acknowledgment by SCU that they have entered into a business relationship with ORI. In plain language the appointments and the business connection to SCU are a package deal. Again, given that Earl has no discernible credentials in “oceanic research” this all begs the question of what kind of vetting process convinced SCU to make the appointments. Jennifer Gidley does have a Ph.d but in a field (Future Studies) that has no apparent link to “oceanic research”. That did not stop SCU Vice-Chancellor Nancarrow from recommending de Blonville to other staff as “very high profile in oceanic research” (GIPA document). Not long after questions were raised by multiple individuals about the process and propriety of de Blonville’s adjunct Professor appointment, Nancarrow changed de Blonville to “Professional Fellow” without explanation. Of the five levels of adjunct appointment, Professor has the highest level of requriement and Professional Fellow the lowest. This in and of itself begs for some explanation of how the original vetting of someone with no traditional qualifications could be so off the mark. 

Invoking privacy laws, SCU administration refused to explain anything about what the roles and responsibilities of Gidley and de Blonville would be and required this author to file a GIPA request to try and ascertain the answer to that question. Several months after filing, partial results were released, heavily redacted including the most obviously germane document, Earl de Blonville’s CV, which presumably makes the case for him being “very high profile in oceanic research”. Other GIPA release documents suggest that there were doubts raised about the CV. Here’s what John Jenkins, the other Vice-Chancellor signing off on the appointment had to say 30 minutes after getting Nancarrow’s email about “very high profile”. “The CV indicates he has an extraordinary professional CV as well as written, audio, and other published works though not much I can see that is truly scientific.” Not much time to do any actual checking of the CV before passing judgement! Both Nancarrow and Jenkins have now left SCU. 

This is de Blonville’s CV from 2011 and the annotations speak for themselves. There is nothing in the 2011 CV that speaks to “oceanic research”. Mr de Blonville has made no effort to explain or refute the annotations and the various examples of embellishment, inflation, falsehood and disingenuous claims. Between when he was “kicked out” of RMIT and his arrival in Lismore, Mr. de Blonville has accomplished the following; 1. talked his girlfriend into buying the Tarnan/La Boheme, 2. tried and failed to launch 9sails.com, 3. tried and failed to sell the Tarnan/La Boheme and 4. purchased a second damaged sailboat (Carola) and made no repairs. And somewhere in there he became “very high profile in oceanic research”. Anyone Googling “Earl de Blonville” would have come across the 2011 CV and could have compared it to the CV that he submitted to SCU. BUT it is now clear that months before approaching SCU about the appointments, Mr. de Blonville had succeeded in his fraudulent efforts to have this website blocked from Google searches IN AUSTRALIA only. So any vetting of Mr. de Blonville using Google search would only have shown results of his own website and self-serving interviews. SCU administration has been fully informed of this gap in their vetting and has chosen not to respond. 

Multiple sources describe de Blonville as smart, well spoken, charismatic, charming and a prolific name dropper. Just like the adminstration at RMIT, SCU Vice-Chancellors seem to have just taken de Blonville’s CV at face value. And this for qualifications that must, according to SCU’s own guidelines, be the equivalent of a genuine Ph.d. 

If SCU’s Marine Studies program wanted to enter into a business relationship with a dive boat owner in order to regularly use his boat for research or student training, that would be entirely reasonable. But you would not expect that agreement to include making the dive boat captain an adjunct Professor! So it appears that the “deal” very much intends to link SCU’s prestige with ORI’s fund raising efforts by creating the impression the two institutions are joined at the hip. Without the adjunct appointments, de Blonville and Gidley’s chances of obtaining funds to run ORI would be significantly reduced. 

If, in fact, SCU failed to properly vet de Blonville and Gidley, vesting them with the prestige associated with adjunct status and thereby boosting their business credibility, that could be an institutional embarrassment. And it can’t be discounted that invoking the privacy laws over a question as basic as “what will this guy be doing for SCU?” could be explained as an effort to cover that embarrassment. 

All of the above is not to say that it is impossible that de Blonville will raise the millions of dollars needed to refurbish the Carola, that he will successfully move the Tarnan to Australia and start eavesdropping on cetaceans with SCU students handling the hydrophones. It could happen but pigs may also fly. Perhaps ORI and SCU are eyeing the basket of dollars to be dispensed by The Great Barrier Reef Project? Based on de Blonville’s record over the last 20 years the real question is what liability does SCU or any other organization potentially face from partnering with ORI?

Arcticexplorer.com, Arcticexplorer.net, 9sails.com were three websites as much as a decade old which were projects of Earl de Blonville’s which never happened. 

When you click on those links above, you’ll be directed to a page from archive.org that says the site has been “excluded”. The site WAS archived but now has been “excluded”. If the page existed but had not been archived, you would be asked if you want to archive the page now. If the page contained HTML text designed to tell the Wayback Machine NOT to archive an existing page, that brings up a different message. Only the confirmed owner of the page can request the page be excluded and the archived data removed.

Prior to October 9, 2019, you would have found archived versions of the websites back to when they were first posted, some as much as 12 years ago. You could have seen for yourself the various claims of experience, expertise, accomplishment that Mr. de Blonville posted and could have followed the evolution of those claims. Here, for instance, is the now erased index of archives of arcticexplorer.net (the student program to Greenland).

Mr. de Blonville has now caused the links and his professional history which they document to be erased from the Wayback machine. 

Let that sink in. 

Mr. de Blonville is actively obliterating the record of his previous business endeavors, claims of experience and expertise, etc. on his own websites. He is erasing his own reputation. However, separately archived pages of those websites exist and will be posted shortly. In addition to hiding his past, Mr. de Blonville also created a new personal website with a subtly different URL, earledeblonville.net.

It will take a little while to replace links to “excluded” with copies archived elsewhere. Feel free to contact me for access to those archives. 

The new personal website:

20 years ago Earle Robert Bloomfield changed his name to Earl de Blonville because he believes he is descended from French knights who invaded England under William the Conqueror in 1006. Between March and September of 2017 Earl began adding back the “e” to his first name and gave himself a new website using that name Earle de Blonville. This is also the time period when Earl pitched Southern Cross University about appointing him an adjunct professor. This name change obscures his original website which contains little information that would support the notion that Earl is “very high profile in oceanic research”. ( There is strong evidence that Earl is still his legal name, so I will continue to use it here for consistency). His new website has a brand new front page, but after that, is the same content as the old website, except that a lot of extra “e”‘s have been tacked on to Earl.

Obviously, this labor intensive minor name change, creation of a new website and destruction of historial records of his previous websites and schemes begs some questions. 

Oceanic Research Institute:

There was a link to an archived copy of ORI’s linkedin page from November 10, 2018. I’ve checked with Linkedin on their policy about copying and reposting and while their answer is somewhat ambiguous, I’ll err on the side of caution and not post a link. If you would like to see a copy of the 2018 version, which clearly suggests that ORI is a fully functioning entity, drop me an email. The purpose in archiving was to be able to track changes in the page over time. Archiving of web pages is one of the important tools for tracking changes in web content and can paint a picture of both honest evolution or efforts to alter or disguise previous content.

Earl de Blonville and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). 

On July 4, 2019, Earl de Blonville, tried to blackmail WHOI into doing something that was entirely outside of their power to do. Click here to read for yourself. 

Earl de Blonville and the Australian Government.

Mr. de Blonville wonders why the Australian Government isn’t funding ORI. Here are some thoughts.

If you have questions, feel free to contact me, Kent Madin, at rett139@yahoo.com or +1-406-595-2310 (text or call)

Mr. de Blonville has also embraced the role of victim of cyberstalking.