It is 1841. Japanese fisherman Shima and his younger brother are wrecked on an uninhabited island by a typhoon. Rescued by a passing Yankee whaling ship, they become unwilling passengers in a world filled with foreign faces, an unfamiliar language, and a hostile chief mate. But when the reclusive captain suddenly falls ill, Shima and third mate Daniel Ellis stumble upon a secret from his past that brings together their previously isolated worlds...