In 1850, fifteen-year-old Jonas Abrams signed on with Captain Will Johnson to sail his fifty-seven-foot cutter, Wander, from the Chesapeake Bay to St. Thomas Island in the Caribbean Sea where Captain Will wanted to establish a boat repair business. For Jonas, this is the adventure of his dreams, but after five days at sea, they are overtaken by a violent storm, giving Jonas his first encounter with rough water sailing, and creating doubts for him about adventures at sea.

Upon arriving in the islands, they come across an uncharted island where they encounter Swabbies' Revenge, a ship that has been overtaken by mutineers. Even though the days of pirating in the Caribbean Sea are long past, she is flying the skull and crossbones and threatens Wander with a cannon shot across her bow to get out of their anchorage on this island.

Jalani and his men had mutinied, overtaking Captain Wilhelm Wagner and his ship, Captain's Bounty, renaming her Swabbies' Revenge and subsequently using her to plunder the cargo-hauling ships of the greedy plantation owners. Captain Wilhelm had been a cruel and abusive captain who had treated his crew, descendants of plantation slaves, as if they were slaves of his own. They had mutinied against him for their survival.

While looking for Blackbeard's lost treasure on St. Thomas Island, Jonas and his shipmate, Spike, stumble upon crew members of Swabbies' Revenge guarding a cave. In time, they learn these men are hiding gold and silver that they have salvaged from a shipwrecked Spanish galleon in this cave. It is their shipmate, Benny, however, who foolishly decides to steal this treasure for himself, even though an ancient Indian woman warns him against doing so.

What isn't known at the time is that Jalani and the men of Swabbies' Revenge are seeking a pardon from the King of Denmark with the promise they will give up pirating and turn Swabbies' Revenge over to the governor of St. Thomas Island. With their recovered Spanish treasure they will recompense all who suffered loss from their pirating and buy plantations of their own but this doesn't happen before they capture Benny trying to steal their treasure, an act punishable by death in their world of survival.