What is the name of the childrens book from the 1970s to 1980s about a family that went on a crazy adventure on a floating house and meeting natives on an island?

There was a sort of underground juvenile novel in the twenties about ( Five Little Starrs on the Canal Zone) a family with five kids living on a barge on the Panama Canal zone and their various adventures. sounds like a very odd variation on well You know what. There were four Girls and one Guy. Sounds familiar, I think we are not in Moscow anymore!