Crad Hobbs, a Virginia waterman, is depressed over the decline in the shellfish trade and the gradual erosion of his former home, a barrier island off Virginia's Eastern Shore. Worse, his beautiful daughter and only child is engaged to a returning World War II veteran who forsakes the oystering trade to take a job with the local newspaper. The cub reporter's first job is interview a New York banker, and former resident, who has secretly come to the Eastern Shore to provide a loan for a beleaguered Latin-American president whose country is battling communist insurgents. Hobbs blames the banker for his home island's destruction; he believes if the banker had approved a loan for a system of breakwaters, the erosion, and resulting loss of fishing habitat, could have been prevented. When Hobbs gets the job of taking the banker to his secret rendezvous, he sails for his ocean-battered island, planning to lock him in the ruins of an abandoned cottage, where he'll be drowned by the incoming tide. The waterman's daughter and her fiancée learn of the kidnapping and borrow another boat to try to prevent the murder.