After making my base by the southern shore, i made a karve and took off north following the shore with the intent on dropping 2 portals while mapping out the landmass my base was on.

Turns out, after dropping making those 2 portals, the land mass i made my base on the southern tip on is, vertically, 1/3 the entire map! Going by what the shore looks like, it more or less swamps and plains.

I successfully circumnavigated the entire landmass, despite the wind being against me more than half the time. I lucked out on only encountering 2 leviathans, one not noticing me, the other chased me for a short time but i thankfully had the wind with me.

After mining 5 stacks of iron from the latest portal i made from that trip, i stored it in a chest under the bench next to said portal and ported home. Took the karve with the intent to reach that iron and bring it home.

The wind was against me almost the whole time. I apparently was too close to the shore because a deathsquito took interest. It made 2 successful attacks on my boat before it came at me and, thankfully and with patience, 3rd times the charm and i 1-shot it.

Unfortunately, right before reaching the first of the 2 portals i dropped, a leviathan caught me and destroyed my boat I was really close to shore but it attacked me 2 times before i was out of its reach.

To put a sour cherry on this fecal sundae(good band name), my stamina was shot and i was taking even more damage. The 'shore' was rocky outcropping that was just out of jumping distance. i ended up dying right next to the shore.

After a painfully and scary trip back with a longboat, i ended up recovering both the stored iron and my corpse, despite getting heavily raided by a variety of grey dwarves(every single type) and a single fuling which was patrolling my corpse.

Never give up, if you're stubborn enough, you CAN AND WILL do it.