As part of a research project, Mike Nelson attempts to spend three days underwater at a depth of 250 feet in a pressure chamber dubbed Scubasphere. A tropical storm pops up, and both the cable and telephone connections attached to the Coast Guard ship above are severed. To make matters worse, the ship heads for safer waters without realizing that Mike has lost his connection to them.
Mike and a young man, whom he had helped rehabilitate when he was a juvenile delinquent, fly to Hawaii to hunt for lionfish, one of the most venomous fish on the ocean floor.
While searching for a sunken wreck, Mike's hard hat diving partner disappears, leaving nothing behind but his torn air hose attached to their boat on the surface.
While Mike is in Nassau on a salvage job, two of his friends catch and eat a strangely poisonous fish for breakfast, which causes severe hallucinations that trigger suicidal and homicidal tendencies.
Mike is recruited to rescue the statue of a Saint who falls off a ship into the sea. The locals believe this is the cause of many problems in the area including the poor fishing.
Mike is invited to join a longtime friend and her workaholic husband on their expedition to explore an Aztec ceremonial pool on an uninhabited island located 15 miles off the coast of Mexico. Mike's friend unwittingly puts her husband's life in jeopardy, when she deliberately strands the trio on the island.
While vacationing in Nassau, Bahamas, Mike meets an eccentric multi-millionaire inventor and his sister. He helps the man experiment with an underwater remote control device used to guide boats.