Coy is a suspended sailor with time on his hands, a mariner without a ship. While attending a maritime auction in Barcelona, he meets a beautiful woman who immediately captures his imagination. Tanger Soto, who works for the Naval Museum in Madrid, is obsessed with the Dei Gloria, a Jesuit ship sunk by pirates in the seventeenth century and - she hopes - resting on the bottom of the sea off the coast of Spain. Tanger uses her considerable manipulative skill with men and her expertise with documents, atlases and nautical maps to chart the search for lost treasure. Coy is quickly drawn into the search, and before long finds himself falling in love. Highly intelligent and meticulously plotted, "The Nautical Chart" is an unforgettable adventure.