Old Man and the Fish

I couldn't appreciate, at the time we read The Old Man and the Sea in high school, why it might or might not matter whether the Old Man was physically dead or not.

And there is a different story - I can't remember the title,
but it's about this guy floating around in a yellow raft. I don't remember how he gets into the ocean in the first place, but I remember there is a water distilling device that he keeps having trouble with. He eats by spearing the large blue fish that take to schooling under his raft, cleaning them and laying strips out on his raft to become some kind of fish jerky. There are two greener ones that keep their distance. He calls these the emerald elders.

The part I remember most often from that story is a scene nearing the end when he recalls how difficult it was at first to spear the fish and is grateful because as he grew weaker and less capable, they seemed to come nearer and move slower, sometimes practically laying belly-up in the water for him to spear as the emerald elders watched from their safe distance.

I am all of these characters.