Tyrone clancy's father randon is chosen to participate in the ironman triathlon, in hawaii. along with his mother and two sisters, tyrone, fourteen, accompanies his father to the big island for the final week of training. randon's youngest girl is swept from the rocks into the water. rice cooked, a hawaiian eeler, who with his daughter palani has been fishing the holes in the lava rock, rescues the girl. but he himself thrown onto the rocks. thus begins tyrone's journey into manhood. his first destination is the city of refuge where the eeler's family resolves to take their father's remains to be with pele, on kīluaea. tyrone is enlisted to help bear the casket to its final rest. in the end, through the spirit of forgiveness and through the determination to complete very different but similar journeys into the depths of their characters, tyrone and the eeler's family find atonement and understanding