A millionaire's yacht goes adrift during a storm and beachcomber Nick Adonidas foresees a fortune in salvage. The yacht is found, but aboard her sits Indian teenager Jesse Jim who says he saw her first, and finders keepers.

Nick Adonidas wants Jesse Jim to be his partner. Jesse's uncle wants him to come home. Jesse just wants to be allowed to make up his own mind. And caught in the middle is Molly Carmody, proprietor of "Molly's Reach" cafe, Nick's landlady and Jesse's friend

The successful beachcomber is the man who gets there first, whether it's picking up logs in a storm .or rescuing a novice sailor in trouble. But what can you co when your chief rival starts using a boat that is jet propelled? Nick Adonidas' rival, Ol' Relic, has done just that, and it is the beginning of what looks like very unfair competition.

An anonymous admirer sends Nick a present in honour of Greek Independence Day. When the present turns out to be a bottle of Greece's famous "Ouao", Nick becomes very independent Indeed, and Jesse Jim is first marooned and then deserted to cope with a pair of unhappy pigs they have somehow inherited during their wanderings.

Nick has always loathed the job of building a log boom even though it's the best way for a beachcomber to run his business. Determined to expand the partnership, Jesse Jim and Hugh Carmody persuade Nick to try just once, and Nick and Jesse set off to make their fortune in logs. Hugh is left at home to look after the office. But Hugh has some ideas of his own about building up the business.

Nick wakes up in "Persephone's" cabin to discover that Hugh has disappeared overboard while he's been asleep. Because the boat is drifting he cannot even be sure where it happened. And so the search for Hugh begins, with Nick and Jesse hunting frantically in one direction while a calm and competent Hugh works his way home in another one.

Jesse Jim and Hugh Carmody set out to learn how to fish for salmon from Swede, an old troller man on the verge of retirement who they hope will let them lease his boat. Back at home Nick Adonidas tries his best to find out what's wrong with Swede's wife. They have been married for forty years and she says she is leaving him .

An old abandoned totem pole lies in the undergrowth on one of the islands near Gibsons Landing. But when someone wants to move it and put it up to decorate the front of a new motel, everyone gets into the act. In the course of the action Jesse comes close to becominq a murderer, and Nick succeeds in setting fire to the "Persephone".

(aka: The Miraculous Clam Digging Machine) A fantastic character named Antoine de Roquefort arrives in town aboard a floating marvel he says is a mechanical clam digger. And Nick is offered the chance - without cost - to make a fortune, no strings attached. Who could resist the chance?

A rash of stolen pleasure boats leaves the police puzzled, but both Nick and Jesse Jim figure they can solve the mystery. The problem, the stolen boats literally disappear in the middle of open water.

An abandoned gravel crusher and a row of concrete silos are an irresistible playground for Hugh and Margaret, especially since their grandmother has warned them not to go there. So they make sure no one knows where they are going, and a very dangerous game begins. (Working Title: "Two Shishkebobs")

The beachcombers take over full operation of the cafe for a day when Molly goes to the city. A bus accident deposits thirty elderly ladies at the door, hungry and tired and totally unprepared for a menu that features Greek lemon soup and shishkebabs.

Among the Coast Indians the potlatch is one of the great traditions - a formal giving of gifts in which a man may give away everything he owns. When Jesse Jim decides to throw a potlatch, Molly gets mad, Nick misses a San Francisco holiday, and Jesse has to capture a bear to start the party.

The foreman of the local booming ground has an unusual hobby - he likes firing people. He's fired so many recently that there's no one left to work for him, so Nick can't sell his logs. The obvious solution is for the beachcombers to fill the gap. But it's not a job with much of a future, even when Hugh gets the foreman's job.

When a business venture goes sour, Nick blames the whole- thing on Relic using the evil eye. He warns the kids that the evil eye is catching, but not soon enough. Margaret discovers she already has it, but she can't find the cure. Then Jesse disappears.

Hugh is in love for the first time. But the girl involved doesn't pay much attention to anyone who doesn't belong to the school's most secret society, the Wharf Rats. Hugh finds that their initiation ceremony is worse than losing the girl, but there is no way of backing out.

Someone is deliberately sabotaging Chuck Howes' logging truck and trying to drive him out of business, and it has to be someone working right beside him. Nick and Jesse volunteer to keep him company on what turns out to be a really dangerous ride down five miles of mountain side.

Electric fences, radar installations, and a harbour full of mines are part of the unreal world created by an old man on his private island. When Hugh steps ashore he thinks it's funny for the first thirty seconds, right up to the moment he finds he's staring into a loaded gun.

Sadie is a lady in her forties. She is also a trapper and guide, and the best shot in the country. She claims to have a map for a gold mine, and she'll share the gold if our friends will help. But who believes in lost gold mines? Nick does, for one.

As the captain of a luxury cruiser, Axel Dashwood makes a good cattle rancher, which is what he really is. He loses a propellor at sea, leaves his family adrift and goes to Nick for help. The only problem is he doesn't remember where he left the cruiser.

Relic has been arrested for log stealing, and no one knows who turned him In. Relic worries about it and Nick worries about it. In fact they worry themselves sick about it, and find themselves.in a makeshift hospital ward set up in Nick's bedroom. And that doesn't make either one of them feel any better.

Molly gets a chance for a quiet holiday looking after a nearby boarding kennel, but the quiet is soon disturbed by the combination of two donkeys, a sheep, an abandoned well and Nick's fear of animals.

The beachcombers stumble onto a unique pair of friends - a wolf with a crippled foot and an old man with a crippled mind. They soon find themselves defending the wolf from a group of bounty hunters and the old man from himself.

The local pool hall becomes the centre of.attention when Jesse and Hugh set up as pool sharks. Nick sets out to show them the error of their ways, but the problem is that he plays lousy pool, and can't resist betting.

Dynamite Jim is a legend - the best black powder man who ever blasted a cliff-face without rattling the teacups in the house on top. And it's his last job, to blast a new water channel for the pulp mill. Only Nick and Jesse know that Dynamite Jim is going to make sure it is the last thing he ever does.

Sea Cavalcade is carnival time in the village. Firemen's water fights, log burling, a long distance swimming race and a demolition derby are all parts of this story of the family at Molly's Reach.