Paul Gilmore, an Anglican priest with great charisma, is transferred to Cornwall for disciplinary reasons due to false accusations. Accompanied by his housekeeper Jane Calder, he arrives at the St. Mary congregation in Newquay. The congregation is shrinking, the roof of the church is not watertight, and the surfer capital is not particularly known for the strength of its faith. Brad Tyler, a successful surf entrepreneur, wants to buy the church building and tear it down in order to build a new company headquarters there. The structure is being planned by Penelope Moore, a single mother architect whose husband drowned while surfing several years ago. Brad is an old friend of the family and has long been in love with Penelope. He makes her a proposal which, caught off guard, she accepts. Before Penelope can tell her daughter Mia about this, she runs into Paul Gilmore, who has just fished Mia’s surfboard from out of the sea. Mia, who promised her mother never to surf again, asks Paul to claim that it is his board. Paul goes along with her and is enchanted by Penelope from the very start – much to the dislike of his housekeeper Jane, who is not above devising a nasty intrigue in order to snuff out the budding love between Paul and Penelope.
