Daniel Morgan, blase and self-centered, wants to travel the world and find adventure. He joins the Coast Guard to do something with his life, but he grows disillusioned by military rules, twenty-year lifers, and his gut-wrenching sea sickness. He spends a year of isolated duty in Alaska, survives the San Francisco earthquake, and swims across the Bay of La Paz in the middle of the night on a drunken escapade with his two buddies. He grows from a novice to a seasoned crewmember, and feels a hint of pride growing inside him, something he never had before. On one last patrol to end his enlistment on a high note, he falls overboard in the North Pacific and must face his immortality where dying at sea amid towering swells and frigid darkness seems certain.