Voyages Of Discovery

- Rowan Mantell

HENRY CHAMBERLAIN has patrolled some of the most beautiful and dangerous places on earth. He has monitored war-ravaged mountain borders by ski and crossed African conflict zones by camel. He survived a car-jacking and suicide bombing in Sudan, took scientists to the Arctic and found ways to get food to the starving.

But for his latest adventures he has come home. Home to the ebb and flow of tides through creeks and saltmarshes on the north Norfolk coast. Here he is patrolling shifting channels and sandbanks and monitoring weather and wildlife, as he sails traditional wooden boats out to sea, or inland through a maze of streams, mudflats and marshes.

After travelling the world, first with the Royal Marines and then as a United Nations security expert, Henry has dropped anchor back in Norfolk and set up an adventure sailing business.

The Coastal Exploration Company offers people the chance to sail in traditional wooden boats. Adventures range from four-hour trips to a day of sailing, foraging and survival skills, followed by a chef-cooked gourmet supper and a night under the stars. Creek swimming, cockle picking and even spear-fishing can feature, as well as learning about navigation by day and night, and on land and at sea.

Henry grew up, with two sisters and a brother, in a cottage on the Houghton estate, where his parents made wooden jigsaws for a living, and he fell in love with the outdoors, adventure and wilderness. The family sometimes stayed at Burnham Overy Staithe windmill, which had once been owned by Henry’s great aunt.