I know, right!
I had to share the pain...
As for treasure, well, I believe you're meant to find maps to locate it, but...I think you get them from message in a bottles, that are dropped when you kill krakens...and they're really tough...
I did stumble across a message in a bottle once - but unfortunately when I opened it, the paper went to mush, so I
hope that just means it was never anything important, rather than me having done something wrong...
The more dangerous creatures spawn as your character gets more talented though, so a good tip is to find somewhere to set up a camp and focus on getting a shelter with a couple of doors - you can dig a route through a group of rocks, for the least amount of work. In my current game, I came across a partly built log cabin!
It happens to be right in among a forest with a large mountain just behind it and the sea just in front of it (but even better than that, there's loads of little streams and pools of freshwater right around it!) Oh, and practice your fighting on the spiders, rats and rabbits...and fish, if you see them. It's quite satisfying to punch a trout...