Pamela Drake is alone on a yacht's deck in the Southern Ocean. Her husband, Alec, is below with a broken leg. When the boat strikes a rock she is flung overboard into the sea. Fortune casts her up on a bleak rock where she fights the elements,her instinct to survive guiding her to use all that is cast up on her beach. Repairing a battered lifeboat she attempts to sail to civilisation.
