Kill the Elder if it is in the vicinity. With troll armor lvl 3 and a lvl 3 finewood bow you can take him down easily.

For a no portal run, I would probably want to set up a simple base close to every boss, and bring the needed materials that are not easy to farm with me. Make sure the base is reachable by boat, so you can load the heavy stuff into it. The Karve should be good enough for this.

Mind, I would probably still farm the copper and tin for the basic forge. Just bring the not so easy stuff or stuff that is hard to come by, like surtling cores or iron later.

Set up only the minimum necessities. Taming should be out of the question, since you probably will need to move on after the boss is down, and you most likely won't be coming back.