Success

Another early morning look at the weather predictions, then we all lifted our anchors up from behind Dog Island at first light, about 7:45 a.m. after a restless night's sleep with the water chop lapping at the hull.  The wind direction had changed although not diminished as much as we hoped.  We all agreed to go though.
It started out not too bad.  About one to two foot waves with an occasional three footer in the mix, but they were on the port stern.  That was better than the beam sea that was predicted.

Sunset.  Notice how nice the waves were.

About three hours into our trip our Auto Pilot went out.  Ray worked on it for hours trying to fix it.  Focusing on something other than the horizon and being in the hot cabin and engine room got him feeling a little queasy.  He would take breaks until he felt better, but never did succeed in getting it fixed.  It ended up some prongs were broken at the wiring connection.  Now we'll need a new controller.  Anyway, that meant we would have to steer the whole way which sounds like we're just lazy, but it is tiring, especially in any kind of rough seas.  We did ask "The Bar-B" to take the lead though to make it easier to have a point of reference to steer to.  Out on the open water it is hard to try to keep on a straight course by staring at the GPS.
Supposedly at 11:00 a.m. the waves were predicted to oppose each other.  That didn't happen until about noon, but it helped to lay the waves down.  They stayed that way all afternoon and through most of the night.
We didn't attempt any fishing until about 5:00 p.m. when Ray was finally feeling well enough to drive for the first time.  No luck though for the three hours we tried with fake bait.
We decided we would take three hour shifts each during the night for driving and sleeping alternatively.  I decided to lay down first once it was dark.  The moonrise wasn't going to be until 10:00 p.m. but I wanted to see it, so after two hours of resting I took over the helm.  Since it was the moon before Halloween I quoted Linus with "the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch" as it came up.  That helped to light up the night sky.
Just before 1:00 a.m. the wind changed direction and velocity dramatically.  The seas were getting a little sloppier.  When Ray took over the helm at 1:30 a.m. (late) for his shift I warned him of the change.  I got another couple hours of rest before the waves were too rough.  It was still not too bad, and thankfully the waves were on the bow but our speed was so that they were hitting the hull pretty hard.  They gradually got even worse so that by about 4:30 a.m. we had to slow down to ride the waves better.  We were crashing down on them so hard things started flying around all over the boat.  Unbeknownst to us, that also included our Spot tracking device.  It ended up in a cup holder and therefore was not able to send out it's signal.  We didn't realize this until the sun was coming up and we could see.  By that time we were at Clearwater inlet.  Sorry to those who were watching and got nervous.
Thankfully though, the rougher waves only lasted a couple hours.  We gradually increased our speed back up and were on the Intracoastal Waterway by sunrise.  We pulled into the free docks at Indian Rocks Beach along with "Lorelei" while "The Bar-B" pulled into his slip at Holiday Inn Harbourside right next door after 180 miles and 24.75 hours.  You are not supposed to overnight at Indian Rocks Beach, but we thought we would get better sleep tied to a dock in a No Wake Zone.  We rested for a couple of hours, but not peacefully.  We forgot, No Wake Zones in Florida don't mean much, especially on a Saturday.