Per my understanding, the ocean is largely very deep.
I can understand why there might be small, not-mountainous islands near the coasts of major landmasses, as it would only take a marginal elevation anomaly to create one there, but: How do places like Polynesia exist?
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The majority of isolated Pacific islands result from so called “hot spots” of volcanic activity that push through the tectonic plate underneath the Pacific ocean.
The Hawaiian archipelago is a great example of how this works, with the Big Island the youngest geologically sitting on top of an active volcanic spout, and the smaller islands having been moved off this volcanic hot spot by plate movement.
The magma gets pushed up through the plate, cools into solid rock, and over a few million years becomes the islands we know today.
Most of the other Pacific archipelagos were formed in the same way.
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