I actually thought that backtracking idea was what was going to happen, but I couldn't find Nouf despite trying so I wound up just getting to Valdivia from Luwoll.
I love the idea of a game like this with trading between ports and such. I wanted to make one for a jam a while back that was on a huge landlocked sea but after a couple of days the evil kraken queen would start tormenting you or w/e, putting your smooth sailing on a time limit. One day, one day...