[William Cloud Hicklin]

Keep in mind that the bulk of the ultimate Numenorean colonies lay off-map in Harad; Umbar and Pelargir were the northernmost. As to why Aldarion originally landed in Lindon- well, besides the fact that one would want an established port for refit and resupply, not an uninhabited bay, it's also the case that the Numenoreans are stated to have been taught shipcraft and sailing "by the Eldar," which I expect means Cirdan's people rather than the occasional visitors from Eressea. So the route to Lindon was known and Aldarion may well have had Elvish navigators on his first voyage.

Why harvest timber and establish a logging port in Minhiriath? Probably because it was "uninhabited" in the usual imperialist meaning of the term (Eriador means, roughly, "empty land"); Harad was full of "civilized" peoples who likely would have objected rather violently to wholesale felling (those of Eriador did, too, but they couldn't do much about it). Moreover, Aldarion's voyages were to the northwest of Middle-earth, even if later mariners went much, much farther; and it would make sense that he was looking for a source of timber not far from his 'advance base' in Lindon without actually encroaching on Elvish lands; probably was pointed that way by Gil-Galad's folk.

Equatorial latitude: the Annals of Valinor state that Tun (later Tirion) is located on the "girdle of the earth." The maps associated with the Ambarkanta (mid-late 1930s, definitely after the Numenor legend was first created) show Taniquetil and the Bay of Elvenhome marked at or near the equator. Eressea is also on or near the equator; and Numenor was just within distant sight of Eressea (from the top of the Meneltarma, so say ~100 nautical miles).

One could also speculate about currents and prevailing winds; in the RW North Atlantic they run in a clockwise circle, so that ships returning to Europe from the West Indies would run up the American coast with the gulf stream and cross in northerly waters, and similarly outbound ships went southwards via the Canaries and Azores. Trying to make a beeline left you becalmed in the Sargasso Sea. HOWEVER- our ocean and atmospheric currents are products of the spinning of the spherical Earth, which wouldn't really be a thing before the Downfall.