Charles Hambleton

Explorer, Academy Award winning Film Producer, Sailor, Diver, Musician From a Pan American Airways family, Charles has lived all over the world and traveled in over 60 countries. He studied English at Roanoke College and Environmental Microbiology at University of Vermont. Charles co-founded The Fox Theater and the recording/touring band, The Samples in Boulder, CO. A waterman at heart, Charles moved from London to Antigua, West Indies in 1991. Charles is a PADI Dive Master, Technical Diving Institute Nitrox Diver, IANTD Re-breather diver, Royal Yachting Association Yacht Master, and private pilot. Charles worked with treasure hunters Scott Mitchen and Tony Kopp in the Caribbean where they discovered the French Fleet of 1678 in Islas Las Aves, Venezuela. In the mid 1990's he used side scan sonar in Lake Superior to map valuable Old Growth Timber also with Mitchen and Kopp. Charles is filmmaker known for his work as producer and as himself on the 2009 Academy Award winning documentary, The Cove (2009), Racing Extinction (2015), The Big Fix (2012) and Vanishing Sail (2015). Charles served as a Sail Master for the marine department on the Pirates Of The Caribbean movie franchise. Always pursuant to new technology, Charles introduced Thermal Imaging filming in The Cove and remains an Infrared Training Center Level 1 Thermographer. The eve after winning the Oscar for The Cove, Charles conceived and led a covert operation to bust the Santa Monica restaurant, The Hump, for serving endangered species SEI Whale meat. He covertly filmed and busted another restaurant for the same illegal service in Seoul, South Korea in conjunction with KEFM (Korean Federation Environmental Movement), Dr. Scott Baker, and the Seoul Police. His work with Dr. Scott Baker and KEFM is published in the scientific journal, Biology Letters. He went undercover again in China and filmed shark fin, manta ray gill, and Whale Shark oil smuggling operations. He is also an artist and paints from his vast collection of thermal images described in his talk at TEDx Maui.