Drifting in a life raft off the northern California coast after a horrifying shipwreck, Neil Kruger retreats from his fear by recalling scenes from his childhood as the son of a commercial fisherman out of Half Moon Bay.

With his emergency rations fast running out, he finds solace in his vivid memories: his powerful attachment to his father, a man who could predict the weather by looking at the stars: his painful estrangement from his mother, who worked at the local cannery to keep the family fed: his fascination with the hard lives and large hearts of a host of fellow fishermen.

In those early years, economic necessity forced Neil's parents to send him out on the ocean, and as he grows into the fisherman's life we learn the real cost of his father's struggle with the sea. There are battles with sea lions who steal his catch, the ever-present threat of storms, the heartwrenching drowning of one of his father's closest friends, and the horror of a hospital ship shattered by a fog-bound accident.

As the story builds to its powerful, inexorable climax, we come to witness the terrible consequences the sea can exact upon those who depend upon it for a meager living.