Second-semester Chaud County Community College criminal justice student Joseph Oliver Kuhl plans to trade his car for a sailboat and travel to the South Seas in search of adventure, wahines, cracked crab, etc. Joe's plans are upset during Balona's Sugarbeet Festival by the self-destructive inclination of the boat and by the flooding of Balona resulting from an "accidental" break in Balona's levee. Joe's ambitions to become a famous private eye, psychologist, and published poet are further complicated by the crash of Blip Wufser's news helicopter onto a Balona street, the apparent kidnapping of heiress Claire Preene, and the disappearance of Joe's father.

Here is a sample from Spring Break. Joe and his Cousin Zack are taking a first look at an infamous boat now owned by Uncle Oak Runcible. Joe pines for this boat:

CLICK for some really watery music.

   I was thinking about wahines and coconuts and a dip in the lagoon after my sauna.
   "Joey, you actually gonna trade your Yellow Peril for this stubby thing?" Zack's voice is high and whiney and Uncle Oak could hear him plain as day, letting him in on my ace in the hole.
   "...this stubby thing. Your 'Yellow Peril' he said. He actually means your little-ass yellow car there, with the mud on the wheels? That car there?"
   "I was thinking about it."
   "...thinking about it. Well, I'd need some cash on the barrelhead, you know, in addition to that little car, which is pretty little and looks, you know, sort of used  looking." He gave my beautiful Yellow Peril a hard look.
   I was thinking about sun sparkling on the lagoon and a wahine or two pouring me cooling beverages while I looked for a place to stretch out on this deck on my back, or maybe on a pile of ropes, squinting into the sun, my arms folded behind my neck. I could hear myself say in a small voice, "I could write you a check for say a hundred bucks along with my little car, but you'd have to deliver The Love Boat to my house in Balona, since you'd have my little car."
   "...little car. Well, I'd have to give that a lotta thought." Uncle Oak was scratching his chin, trying to stretch so he could stand up straight.
   I climbed down the ladder and trudged slowly toward my Yellow Peril, looking over my shoulder at that great dark pirate-looking sail-less craft, wondering how I could get a sail for it if I wrote a check, since I didn't have enough money in my checking account to cover a hundred bucks, much less a sail.

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