Island life is hard. The lack of resources is frustrating, but traders leave their ship and walk to the bottom of the ocean trying to find "A safe location". Maybe they're trying to walk along the bottom to the opposite shore?
This is a great test case, Scout. I haven't messed around with building in areas that are surrounded by water, and this will probably play havoc with some of my location utility functions. I wonder what the hell those idiots are running from, prompting them to find a safe location. I might need to expand the action text for this activity to provide that information.
Did they at least drown when they idiotically tried hiding at the bottom of the ocean? If they're still alive and just hanging out down there, this is indication of a pretty serious bug with drowning calculations. This is a great test case you're trying out - I can't believe I haven't really played on a small island before, but huge thanks for thinking of this!
Most of them just vanished, but atleast one from each shuttle is hiding at the bottom of the ocean.
I'm no good with the building system, so the colony lives underground and has the important stuff up top.