Desperate times call for desperate measures. Farm raised shrimp from Asia have driven the prices of wild caught shrimp down. Three bad winters followed by hot and dry summers have decimated the wild population. Now the Department of Natural Resources has closed the season to give the wild population time to recover. For the last three years Jack has gotten by on a meager catch and savings, but now the savings are gone. When his friend and fellow shrimper, captain Barns, suggest that they go to the southern Caribbean and work the international waters off Venezuela, he turns him down. "To many crazy people with guns, and no law. Between the Cubans, the drug runners, and plain old pirates out of Jamaica and Haiti that place is a war zone." Now, faced with losing everything he and his wife have built, and unable to support his family, he agrees. This begins a voyage into hell that is sold as paradise in the tourist brochures and cruise ship advertisements. As they move further south Jack realizes that one misstep and you lose everything. A man will do anything necessary to protect and support his family and way of life, even murder.