Decided Sunday 5/20/12 should be a good day and gave heads-up to a coworker and her husband that I would do my best to put them on cobes if they were interested. Got EVERYTHING in order the night before, with one small exception... I didn't put out my good-luck hat.
Looked for it like a mad-man at 4:45am but couldn't find it, so left the house hoping that the missing hat wouldn't end up impacting the fishing. Had the Mrs. call after I was 5 minutes down the road to tell me she had washed it and it was in the dryer. 
After years of the solunar cycle serving me fairly well, it just did NOT turn into a banner day and it wasn't due to lack of effort. Followed the exact same strategy in the exact same spots that earned the boat trout, seabass, mackerel, and 8 cobia the trip before. While I fished for bait I was optimistic my guests would hook a few trout / macks but no dice (did get a few cutoffs that were very likely macks). Pinfish were thankfully much more predictable.
Run offshore for cobia, and go almost two hours with nary a grouper or cobia bite. And then it happens... solid slam, steady ripping of line on a decent sized combo, with 99.9% confidence we've got a NICE keeper cobia on... and we're so asleep at the wheel from lack of bites we're about 10 seconds slow to get to the reel. Guest starts putting some tension on the line and my worst fear proves true... immediate cutoff on structure due to letting the fish have too much time/leeway.
Only defense I can give the solunar cycle relative to our trip is that the bite DID pick up at the predicted times of 11am to 2pm. Brought two short cobia to the boat and tagged one of them (other released itself boat-side). Saw plenty of bait the sites we visited, marked fish, it just never lit on fire and didn't see anyone slaying fish at the spots we visited, instead just the same slow occasional bites we found.
Saving Grace was the decision to run inshore and try to find a red before calling it a day. Didn't leave ourselves lots of time so I rushed efforts to check a few spots and didn't make perfect stealthy approaches... not perfect, but good enough to have the coworker's husband hook up his first-ever redfish. Gave him a good tug on the line, as well as a good supper plan so he was pretty happy.
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All that shared, still plan on taking the "lucky" hat next time! 
