Left the River Forest marina in the morning, chugging along westward, past our first gator (unfortunately a dead one by the side of the canal), and under the LOWEST bridge of the Okeechobee Waterway, a 49-foot clearance railway bridge that is normally left in the "up" position (unless a train is coming):
The lowest bridge
Our mast is 46' from the waterline, we didn't even scrape the VHF antenna.
We hailed the lock at the eastern end of Okeechobee (Port Mayaca lock, pronounced as though you were in Mexico, so my-AH-ca) on VHF 13, and it was in the always-open position (apparently at this time of year that's not unusual). So we chugged through:
Port Mayaca lock was open
And on out into a wide, flat, inland-sea-looking Lake Okeechobee, nowhere deeper than about 10 feet, and generally less:

As we were passing an isolated red marker pole sticking up out of the middle of a whole lot of featureless water, and the shoreline was starting to become a dotted line of trees far astern, I wondered about this vast body of shallow open water lying under a subtropical sun... hmmm... and another 45 minutes later, there was indeed a large, dark, threatening-looking cloud on the horizon, centered just slightly to the north of our course line and covering about 1/3 the W sky.
Thunderhead over west end of Lake Okeechobee
The wind was from the south, and had picked up a bit (maybe 10 kts). Then as we got closer and closer to the now-towering thunderhead with lightning flashing down from it and opaque rain obscuring the horizon beneath it, the "cloudburst" wind hit, about 25 kts of outflow from the raining base of the cloud, out of the WNW. Derek and Grant were so exhilarated by the sudden breeze and related cooling effects, that they horsed around on the foredeck, once we were on the SW leg of our crossing and no longer heading into the cloud!
The lake got choppy fast (no pics of that, too busy steering), but also the whole phenomenon faded within an hour, so aside from a bit of spray and windy excitement, it was a peaceful crossing. The breeze certainly made it cooler, which was nice. The shallowest reading we got going across Route 1 (crossing the center) was about 5.5 feet (2.5 under the keel, as our depth gauge is keel-mounted). In the very final part, we entered a dredged canal which is sheltered on both sides by grasses growing up on the dredge spoil areas on either side. We've truly returned from the sea to "the sea of grass":
Grant and Derek got ready to do line handling and admire the herons and anowy egrets and anhingas drying their wings in the grasses and bushes beside the channel:
Clewiston is on the western shore of Lake Okeechobee, mainly they produce sugar in this area. Heading for the Clewiston entrance through another open lock, we had first passed through about a mile or more of "sea of grass" with gators basking by the edges of the dredged canal, exactly what this part of Florida is always pictured as looking like. The marina here (Roland and Mary Ann Martin's Marina) is also a "fishing resort," so they have a marina store that opens at 6 a.m. every morning. They also have a tiki bar called The Tiki Bar, which serves giant drinks in souvenir glasses (only they are made of plastic, but nobody ever calls that a "souvenir plastic"). There was a band that came on as we were exploring the cold drinks - not always very clear as to their name, but it seemed to be The Shurkan Playboys. JJ McCoy plays lead guitar with a yellow guitar strap that says "Police Line Do Not Cross," (someone at the side bar said he's involved with the local sheriff's department) and his "rhythm" guitarist Rob does harmonies and a few of his own lead songs, and the bass player Lou is the hairless and most outgoing member of the group, he wanders the room with his cordless pickup in his bass. The drummer, Mark, has enough hair to make up for the rest :-) They were pretty good! The have a YouTube video if you want to check 'em out. The keyboardist was not present, and apparently they sometimes have a fiddler and sometimes a dobro player. This was just two guitars, bass, drums, and JJ was running the sound board with his foot.
Since the boat is only a few boat-lengths from the bar, we were also grateful that they stopped at midnight...