In the days of the tall ships and colonial rule of the South Pacific, a naive
native sailor working as first mate on an island hopping windjammer is
unjustly jailed in Tahiti for striking a racist planter with government
connections. His attempts to escape imprisonment and return to his home
island and young wife are contrasted with the attitudes of the white colonials,
including a humanitarian physician, a `by the book` governor and a sadistic
jailer, as well as the forces of natural justice in the form of a devastating
hurricane. Written by the authors of `Mutiny on the Bounty`