Island of Algae

The floating island represents an apparently safe haven for those castaway with no other help, luring fish into its grasp, perhaps with the promise of a hiding place or food, but then killing and digesting their remains. Like in Oliver Twist, and in reality a lot of the world, some impoverished people may be taken into a criminal organization, with the hope of a family, companions, or at the very least a caretaker. But instead they are recruited to do the dirty work no one else is willing to risk doing. They then get the blame, their masters get ever richer, and once they've been snatched by the authorities everyone forgets they ever existed.

Pi sees the island and how it seems so lush and sweet, how the cute, innocent mongooses feed off the "sins" of the island. He cleans the boat, feeds himself of the island, but then leaves realizing what the island really is and how what he is doing is just like what the mongooses are. This shows a glimmer of hope that he is not yet inhuman, that he still has a conscience. He is not like the uncaring mongooses who have no problem taking the profit of the island.