This is my first minecraft world in a loooong time. My spawn point happened to be on a medium-large sized island and I've made a decent home and started several tunnel systems in there as well, and done a bit of a exploring. I have four farms- egg farm, cow farm, pig farm and wool farm- and a number of crop sections placed in the general area of home base. Due to not knowing what direction any land lies in, I have not explored the surface much. I have explored the nether some.

[update one] Rather than risk the open sea, I crawled into the nether and walked in a direction until I found a suitable place to make a new portal. I have arrived in a jungle biome about 1400 units of distance away from my home base.

[update two] After exploring the jungle, hills, and desert biomes for several days (and taming a dog and two cats), I went back to the portal to return home. I was unaware that the pets do not follow you through the portal, nor teleport to your location on the other side. I created small grave-signs for them in memory. Upon returning back to my base, I went to my utility-level and began a tunnel in the same direction as my exit-portal in the jungle, far below the surface.

I miscalculated and upon attempting to reach the surface what I believed was two hundred units north of my marker (the portal), I found the ocean. Swimming to the nearest land, I was able to correct my trajectory and walk towards the portal. I was met shortly into the jungle by my JungleDog and cats, and have made it back to the portal to head back to the tunnel's beginning so I can correct my grievous error and plug the ocean-drain.

[update three] Instead of going back to the Ocean Hole, I swung a left where I had previously run into some silverfish and found a stronghold! Hooray me. It was full of scary monsters but I managed to make my way through it well enough and then start the tunnel back to the correct coordinates this time (last time I forgot a negative.) Tunnel is complete, and there's a small stone hut in the middle of the jungle with a large set of stairs near to my exit portal. Now it's just a matter of getting my dogs and cats through the tunnel safely back to home base on Home Island.

[update late] It's been a while. I've done a large bit of exploring both above and under ground. I've been getting better at this enchanting thing, and have a bunch of cool tools and armor and such. Recently I went and made a walled-in getaway in the swamp west/south-ish of my jungle portal. Trying to get enough farms going that it can be a second base of sorts. I started a branch-mine in the hills nearby, and I've got one of my dogs with me so that's always cool. I've yet to find a single village or a temple, though, and don't know how far I'd probably have to travel to get to one.

[update one month later] Real life got busy. Went back and made a treehouse in the jungle near my portal. I managed to find a jungle temple and a desert village in random exploring a while ago, after I last updated, and that was neat. Due to a weird bug that seems to happen with dogs being aggro'd while sitting nearby, pretty much all ten of my dogs got warped from their original home in my Glass Bulb Garden (Home base) to my treehouse. That is a bit awkward.