How early do you go to Mysidia?

I'm running through this game on GBA while on vacation at the in-laws', and remembering how cool a lot of it is. One of the neat things about it is that the world map is VERY open, so you can go anywhere anytime provided you don't get eviscerated by more powerful enemies. In particular, as soon as you get Minwu and the canoe, you can sneak off to Mysidia and get crazy powerful stuff like Ogrekillers, Ice Bows, Giant's Gloves, and Swap tomes. Most of the time, I wait until I'm powerful enough to survive the walk southwest from Altair, but this time, I realized I could get there as soon as I got to Kashuan where the chocobo forest is. Not only did I manage to get there, I also spent a little time grinding the winnable battles (Black Flans, Brains, Mines) outside the city in order to get enough money for four Ogrekillers, two Ice Bows, all the best armor, and one Swap tome. Pretty much set me up for the rest of the game! Have you ever exploited this, and if so, when do you like to try it?

Considering how easy it was to bork the game I normally ignore the trick though when I did the FAQ in this forum I did jump down there so I could get an early lead on some spells and HP/MP growth. So basically I grinded long enough to survive getting a beat down from the Imperial Knights in Fynn and then used all the gear and spells they dropped to get some money and more powerful so I could trek down there and start doing some more experimenting.