The ocean may be bountiful, but not always certain parts. More can always be said on the matter, of course, so if anyone would like to address further the thought of sailors fishing for food, please go ahead and make your posts! We'll never turn down new material.

For the meantime, OP, here are some previous posts for your perusal:

• u/jschooltiger notes where the ocean isn't bountiful, as relevant to sailors in their flair era;
• and u/terminus_trantor also observes the same problem, from the point of view of Columbus' expeditions.

Hey there,

Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.

If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!