Vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard with his family, 10-year-old Peter Morgan is thrilled when he meets Charles Williams. The feeling is mutual. Both boys are happy to have a friend to hang with for the summer, instead of having to follow their parents everywhere around the island. Their excitement hits an almost fever pitch when they discover that Jaws 2 is being filmed in Edgartown! When the two boys meet Craig Upland, an islander and member of the production, he says he can get them up close and personal with one of the mechanical sharks. The boys will remember this summer season for the rest of their lives.

Judie Tate and Alan Quaid are spending the summer navigating their relationship while sailing the waters of Vineyard Sound. They’re both attractive, single, and they enjoy each other’s company—so why not? It seems only natural that a romance should blossom. That is, until Craig Upland drives into the picture and takes an interest in Judie. Sails are hoisted, tempers brew, and tensions run deep. Everything comes to a head during a storm the likes of which the island won’t soon forget.

Forty-five years later, the sun rises on a new summer season. 1977 was a big year in the island's history—movie productions, the disappearance of a boy from a prominent family, and political unrest forcing the island to try and secede from the state of Massachusetts. It’s all the focus of an exciting art exhibit in Edgartown which brings Peter and Charles back together again for the first time in almost five decades. Charles is married to the Edgartown police chief and Peter is now a celebrated New York artist. He has come back to the island to excavate the demons that have made his art popular but are also slowly killing him. Photos the two boys took that summer are to be featured in the exhibit. Yet someone does not want the exhibit to take place. Someone is willing to do anything to stop the secrets of the past from swimming to the surface.