North winds are tricky here because as you leave the shoreline, the wind is behind you and since the seas are coming off land, the waves haven't had a chance to build up much until you get out a few miles.
The net effect is that it looks very nice and innocent until too late. Once you're out there you will have to run against those seas to get back. Depending on what time of day, we had 10-footers offshore and 2-4 close in that day. A cold front had just passed through.
If you break the number one rule by going offshore without an anchor you end up at the mercy of wherever the seas want to carry you.
The bad news is that this happens all the time with inexperienced visitors.
On the other side of the coin, the Bermuda-Azores high pressure ridge will soon be building into place and our typical calm to near-calm seas come along with its SE flow. The Gulf gets what we call "slick-calm" in late spring and summer and often the surface calms into what looks like a huge mirror from just before sunset until just after sunrise.