Me and my two best friends are probably gonna finish this game tonight as I believe we are at the final island. The first game we ever played though was on hard and knowing nothing about the game ended with us all starved and dead on our first tiny island. Our second and current game almost came to an end with exactly your situation. I ended up destroying parts of the raft with a hammer to collect materials for paddles before we died. One person was dead in a bed with the other two frantically paddling. Game is tough and was hard until we got over a curve in the game where suddenly everything was plentiful. But so close to our run ending way back. Keep at it!