As Moomintroll gets wasp-stung and must lie in bed Moominpappa wants to cheer him up by telling about his own adventurous youth. Pappa tells about his misunderstood childhood, how he escapes from an orphanage and about his historic meeting with an inventor called Hodgkins. He reveals his struggles in hefty storms on the boat Oshun Oxtra, and all his adventures in the autocrat Daddy Jones's kingdom. Pappa establishes a colony, befriends with a ghost and - one stormy night - he rescues Moominmamma from the sea. And rest is history.