Jared and Sam are two lovers living a rustic life in a trailer, next to the beach in the Bahamas. Sam works as a guide in the local aquatic theme park, "Atlantis", and Jared has worked a number of odd jobs in his field of passion, diving. His real dream, though, is finding one of many merchant and pirate ships lost in the waters around the Bahamas, many of them with large amounts of gold on board.
Jared's friend Bryce and his girlfriend Amanda come to visit, as Bryce, a lawyer in New York City, has acquired the use of a luxury vacation house from a client he defended. While snorkeling, Jared comes across artifacts that seem to stem from a ship wreck. The four of them investigate and find several other pieces that turn out to be the remains of a legendary French pirate ship, the Zephyr, lost as the pirate made his getaway.
This legendary shipwreck is rumored to contain millions in gold. The foursome, thinking their dreams of discovering buried treasure have finally come true, decide to investigate. While exploring it to try and stake their claim, they come across the remains of a crashed plane carrying a large quantity of cocaine. Bryce and Amanda are advocates of keeping the cocaine, while Jared and Sam oppose it. To avoid attracting attention to the location of their treasure find, Bryce and Amanda agree not to report the crashed plane and its illegal cargo until they have secured their claim on the sunken ship.
Jared and Bryce go to a local boat supplier, in order to make a deal for the equipment needed to retrieve the treasure, with Bryce funding the purchase. However, Jared soon finds out that Bryce, on a trip to Las Vegas, borrowed money from a loan shark and is in heavy debt and therefore is in no position to pay for anything.
Without Jared's knowledge, Bryce and Amanda come up with a plan to retrieve some of the cocaine from the sunken plane and sell it to local night club owner Primo (Tyson Beckford). Unfortunately, Primo turns out to be an associate of drug lord Reyes (James Frain) to whom the cocaine belonged in the first place. Reyes, wanting his cocaine back, threatens Jared, Amanda and Bryce at gunpoint to bring him his cocaine or die.