The official story is that the island was just a pumice raft that had all but dissipated by the time we arrived, something that would go down in the books as odd but not unusual enough to make people want to look into it. If they did they'd find that the island very much does exist and is even inhabited.
We were shocked by the latter. The old nautical records stated that it was nothing but trees and birdsong with a smallish beach and nothing interesting enough to keep a bunch of 18th century sailors hanging around. Probably best that they didn't meet the locals, especially now that they've developed a taste for human meat... not our finest moment.
It was supposed to be a simple "have a look around, try and find new birds or whatever, head back with photos and samples" but within half and hour we'd met the saltwater amphibious creatures and barely a few minutes later we were scrambling towards the boat as fast as humanly possible.
They didn't like us arriving and they sure as hell didn't like us trying to leave, if the multitude of claw-marks along the hull as anything to go by. Things got worse when night came, even though we were hours away from the island but I guess we'd managed topiss them off enough that the were in fact willing to chase us down until they got their blood.
Eight of us left and only three came back. One by one they picked us off, hunting us down around the ship while we tried to hide and figure out if landing near civilisation would be our best option or the worst option. I mean, they clearly hadn't met humans before and they already seemed to hate us, exposing them to a heavily populated area might have caused them to expand their territory and begin hunting us all.
Five deaths was a small sacrifice to make to prevent that, the skipper who spent the entire voyage back tucked away in a locker full of dirty washing said. He hadn't seen them die, he turned tail and fled as soon as the first one leapt onto the deck and grabbed one of the research assistants, dragging them towards a mouth crammed with teeth.
After they killed five of our group they slowly made their way towards the rear of the boat where they could slide back into the water. They did one final lap of the whole ship first, using their pelvic fins and almost hand-like pectoral fins to walk themselves around and eventually slide back into the pitch black ocean.
So as far as anyone else knows, the island doesn't exist and as far as we know, they didn't follow us back.
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