The Crew of the Morningstar’s plan felt… Nonsensical?

Want to open this by saying I’m not exactly expecting Tolkien levels of writing from a single tall tale- I get that it was supposed to move the story along and whatnot, however… The crews plan was extremely odd. They knew they were being hunted, so they crashed their ship? On purpose? I get that it was to deter Graymarrow, but he easily found them anyway… In addition, how did they get to the Wilds? Via rowboat? If they had enough time to row all the way to there… Why not go to a closer island, and prepare a potential defense or actual hideout?
Finally, they were sitting in plain sight… Around a campfire… And made no motion to defend themselves (other than the captain.) Just seems like a bit of a plot hole to me.