Pesic's Authority

At the beginning of chapter 5 of Labyrinth he says that the author's ship in the beginning of New Atlantis was wrecked. This is obviously not the case. They were running out of provisions. This is a small and seemingly unimportant mistake. Except that it is obvious, this made me thing of what kind of authority he has. One thing that I now call into suspect is his reason why the island is underpopulated, because I don't remember the author really mentioning the island was self-sufficient. But I now have a hard time trusting everything Pesic says.