It is 1841. Japanese fisherman Shima and his younger brother, out on a routine fishing expedition, are wrecked on an uninhabited island by a freak typhoon. Their rescue by a passing American whaling ship proves a short-lived miracle when, barred from reentering Japan, the ship heads for the whaling grounds of the South Pacific. Shima becomes an unwilling passenger in a strange floating world filled with foreign faces, a new language, and a hostile chief mate. But when the reclusive captain suddenly falls ill, Shima and third mate Daniel Ellis stumble upon a secret from his past that brings together their previously isolated worlds. Inspired by the true story of John Manjiro, one of the first Japanese in America and later interpreter to the shogun, "The Sea-God at Sunrise" is a tale of friendship and forgiveness across two cultures at the height of America's Golden Age of Whaling.