This book describes the sudden, storm provoked, capsize and sinking of the Mexican dive charter boat, Cecilia Valdez, on New Years Eve in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Of fourteen persons aboard, only the helmsman and five sport divers escaped, to find themselves swimming in a stormy, wave-tossed sea. The rest of the book accounts their heroic survival afforts, not as a group, but mostly as individuals, in which all but one succeed, as the result of a final, deadly confrontation. Many other groups and individuals are involved in the massive international rescue effort prompted by Cecilia's disappearance without warning.