Four men – each of whom just wanted to go and buy cigarettes – decide not to return home. Fate brings these four men together in a small Croatian village, where they soon find themselves living on an old fishing boat held together only by its paint.

More about the series: Petrol station owner from Hamburg, Hannes “Mecki” Meckelfeld, can no longer stand his quarrelling wife and her mother and runs away. In Valun, a small fishing village in – what was then – Yugoslavia, he meets the overburdened lawyer Dr Günter Zack, who is dissatisfied with his work, also the painter Joe Felden, who paints pictures for the Munich chic scene and earns a lot of money with them, but realises that he is no longer a serious painter, and finally the Viennese café owner Ludwig Hawratil, who is terrorised by extortionists for protection money.

The four down-and-outs enjoy doing nothing. When money becomes scarce, they decide to repair an old barge lying on the beach. It belongs to old Luka, but he gives them permission to use it for courier services. They christen the ship Tohuwabohu. From now on, they live from deliveries for Mirko, the melon seller, and from other odd jobs, some of which bring them more money, some less.