A Minnesota children's mission purchases a black wooden schooner in Miami, Florida, to deliver a load of children's supplies to an orphanage on the small island of Ile a Viche off the south coast of Haiti. The strict Sister Rebecca is in charge of the mission. She hires an unemployed captain from Key West to sail the ship. They encounter pirates, drug dealers, Haitian bureaucracy and Haitian Voodoo. And, of course, they discover each other.