This query reminds me of what happened in my village in Maine back in the 1940's.
When one of local fishermen disappeared one night many years ago, the neighbors all expected that he had drown tending his fish weir. Cal was also known as a drunkard and everyone one knows that messing around with a skiff and drinking is looking for trouble. When Cal didn't show up the next day the neighbors began the search, looking for his skiff which was eventually found up the cove and grounded on the far shore. But there was no sign of Cal except for a half empty wine jug. Well, some continued to search along the shore while another group began dragging grapples through the weir. Long about evening Agnes, Cal's wife, heard a gentle knock on her back door and when she opened it there was a crowd of her neighbors standing there looking glum. She asked them if they had found Cal and the crowd parted down the middle and there was Cal stretched out on the cellar door drown dead, his body covered with starfish, crabs and one big lobster. So Agnes looks down at Cal, then looks at the crowd around her and says, "Well, boys, I guess we better strip off the take and set him again."