Mike applied as a foreign exchange student, and on a lark asked to be sent to a tropical island (which has the strange capability to sink and pop up"like a cork" a few moments later every"few hundred years or so"). She found herself dumped on a forgotten, barely mapped island populated by descendants of a British shipwreck (which is why Lu and Og, and their parents, speak perfect English). This island may be based on the real-life Pitcairn Island. The Castaways have"gone native" and are trying to behave like Polynesians, with varying degrees of success. Amongst other things, this explains Og's name and his (un)dress sense.