Jamie's mother is concerned that he has grown into an angry and querulous young man who shows no respect for authority in any guise, but Jamie is just anxious to get out from under his parents' unyielding and watchful influence. Five weeks from high school graduation, Jamie meets Christine Powers, a glamorous visitor who hates the ocean. Instantly infatuated, Jamie replaces Anny Flanagan, his longtime girlfriend with Christine-a choice unwisely made as Christine only sees Jamie as a way to punish her boyfriend. No sooner begun, their torrid affair ends chaotically when Christine deserts him. Rejected by Anny and in dire trouble with the school authorities, Jamie makes yet another hasty decision by daring to interfere with a jewel heist orchestrated by local mobsters.

When his audacious plan goes awry, Jamie strives to elude the mobsters in a twilight flight across the angry waters of the Chesapeake Bay, testing his naïve certainty that he will never die at sea.