A six-time grantee of the National Geographic Expeditions Council and award-winning writer and filmmaker Bowermaster's recently concluded OCEANS 8 project took him and his teams around the world by sea kayak during the past ten years, on expeditions ranging from the Aleutian Islands to Vietnam, French Polynesia to Chile/Argentina/Bolivia, Gabon to Croatia and Tasmania to Antarctica. Seeing the world from the seat of a sea kayak has given Bowermaster a one-of-a-kind look at both the health of the planet's ocean and the lives of the nearly 3 billion people around the globe who depend on them. His website and blog (Notes from Sea Level, www.jonbowermaster.com) continues his reporting on the world's coastlines, the people who live along them and issues of importance to anyone interested in and concerned about the planet's ocean. His companion book to the brand new DisneyNature film "Oceans" will be published alongside premiere of the film on Earth Day, April 2010.Author of eleven books, his most recent are "Descending the Dragon" about his travels in Vietnam published by National Geographic Books, "Wildebeest in a Rainstorm," a collection of profiles of our most intriguing conservationists and explorers and "Crossing Antarctica," the latter two just-published by Menasha Ridge Press. When not traveling Bowermaster lives in Stone Ridge, New York.