On our beloved giga 3v3 conti maps.. I rarely explore the coast early unless I see it very early because I know where it is basically anyhow and I know that there will be fish out there whether I check early or not. Sometimes, I may have not seen reasonably quick berries and wood and looked for a SF spot early. Anyhow, I do try to time the arrival of my vils for the time I get 100W. However, that isn't possible to do perfectly and I'd rather arrive early than late. If early I have a few seconds for a look around and sometimes I need to kill gators or even lions that interfere w/docking. Often one guy arrives before the 2nd builder but that is no real problem either.
On a good day my arrival at the sea will reveal 3 SF easily accessable by one pit. I can then opt to grab them to speed my tool. I then SF until I have 120 wood and also try to time the arrival or 2 more builders at a slightly different ocean fishing spot. A 2nd food source is key to my goals of making vils consantly from my TC and still tooling at an acceptable time in 3v3's and 3 SF provide 750 food quickly w/6 vils on them. Thus I will go with one dock and a few FB less, to tool/bronze faster with a couple more real vils.
On giga med the sea is often far away.. and you often need to send 2 guys to it before your pit is done and sometimes even a bit before it's started if your TC is in a corner.
So err on the side of being a little early at the sea but don't overdo that...neilkaz...
PS..you can grab 10 res.. but often it's wasted when you end up fighting gators or lions or never returning to a pit for a long time if you send those builder to an enemy. Still however gathering 10 food from a dead gator is better than doing nothing at all if you clearly in a good dock spot. Also you can knock a tree or two down if waiting around doing nothing. But in general, if early , you explore a bit more.