The Jaredites are instructed to build barges and set out across many waters. The text is not as clear as we might prefer it, but this appears to be the first of two barge-building episodes. In this case, they embark, but specifically stop when they come to “that great sea which divideth the lands” (v. 13), where they stay for four years (v. 14).
Geography: While Moroni includes no information on the amount of time this part of the journey took, he records no significant pause, in contrast to verse 13. Logically, the Jaredites followed a river valley (I suggest the Euphrates as more direct), until they reached the seashore. Either they embarked on the Black Sea and traveled through it to the Mediterranean, or they embarked directly on the Mediterranean. I hypothesize that a likely scenario was sailing west across the Mediterranean, perhaps stopping in northern Africa or southern Spain.