tucumseh,
Please forgive me as I am a long retired "Truckie" - just what is the relevance of how far the cloud extended over the sea? If you are flying VFR at low level at 150 kts with VIP (or any other) Passengers and the cloud was obscuring the high ground on your track YOU DO NOT ENTER THE CLOUD. Clouds when flying at low level are like chocolates - some of them have very hard centres!!
Low level aborts should be second nature to anyone who operates at low level.