A new young priest begins his duty on a small island. He assumes that the service should not be to demanding, so that he will be able to finish his doctoral thesis. But the life at sea is hard with severe accidents. He faces emotionally difficult situations related to both love and death.
Romance blossoms between single seamstress Puck and the art critic, Roger. He is engaged to Elsa, whose wedding dress Puck is involved with designing.
Lasse Brenner is a serious filmmaker (spoof on Ingmar Bergman) who is forced to direct a lighthearted comedy. The filming takes place in different cities across Europe and North Africa so Brenner and the crew have to sail on a cruse ship. Brenner's wife suspects he has an affair with the lead actress, so she also boards the ship undercover to keep an eye on him.
"Strange Harbor " - A Swedish cargo ship is in the winter of 1938 at the dock in Gdynia in Poland, waiting to depart with coal to Sweden. In a tavern in the port a Polish dockworkers tries to tell something to the Swedish sailors, but is rudely turned away by the tavern owner. Later in the evening the port worker is found dead. That same evening one of the Swedish sailors, meets a Jewish woman who has fled Nazi Germany.
Harry, returning home after six years in an asylum, has vivid recollections of a party many years ago with six of his friends. The party ended with one of them, Raoul, disappearing. A gardener is digging in Harry's garden when a skeleton and a watch with the name "Raoul" is found. Harry invites his friends to a dinner to solve the mystery of Raoul's disappearance.
Sailor Johannes Blom returns to his home port, after seven years at sea, to find that Sally, the girl he has been thinking of while away, is completely despondent. Seven years earlier, obstreperous Alexander Blom, brings his mistress Sally to live with him, his wife Alice, son Johannes, and crew, aboard the salvage boat he captains. Amidst all the tensions on the small boat, Johannes and Sally fall in love with each other.
Jan-Erik Widgren meets the lonely Bertha Olsson, a woman struggling with alcoholism. Though Bertha is already linked to Caligula, Jan-Erik's heartless teacher, she begins a relationship with the boy anyway. When Caligula learns that Jan-Erik is having an affair with Bertha, he begins to torture his student psychologically. He reserves his cruelest behavior for Bertha, however, which results in a tragic turn of events.