I have done it several times. Not something to look forward to, but not all that bad (in "normal" conditions) either. The theory of staying close to shore and traveling at night does not make sense to me, unless you have a boat / crew that just can't take the "normal" conditions. From my perspective, close to shore means more debris, traffic and uncharted shoaling (you can't trust the charts, in some cases, they we be off by 1/4nm, so who knows how bad the depth accuracy is), and I really don't think the sea conditions are much different (maybe less wind, but the seas are about the same). I travel 20- 40 nm off shore where there isn't much to hit. Its a 4-5 day trip, so my approach has always been to leave an extra week for contingencies. One time, the conditions were marginal, but improving. We departed on schedule, half expecting to anchor up somewhere but once we got underway, we decided we would rather tough it out.