It looks like a lake, but it’s not. Watch a kayaker paddle on a flooded Key West street

It’s been done before.

But watching it never gets old.

A kayaker paddled along the 500 block of Key West’s Front Street as heavy rains have swamped the Southernmost City and the rest of the Florida Keys this week.

Ericson Holt, a singer-songwriter, was leaving a gig at Two Friends Patio Restaurant, 512 Front St., on Wednesday night when he used his cellphone to capture someone using a kayak to maneuver the flooded road.

“I had finished a show and was waiting to load out my equipment,” Holt said.

He posted the video around midnight. After 12 hours, the video had drawn thousands of views.

This part of the island almost always floods during a heavy rain, and paddlers have been known to test the waters on the streets. But even locals were impressed at the sight of the kayaker.

“I have waded in ankle deep water in front of Sloppy’s but this is something else!!” posted Alysson Storey in the comments on Holt’s Facebook page. She’s referring, of course, to the famous Sloppy Joe’s bar, 201 Duval St.

The National Weather Service in Key West predicts more showers and thunderstorms in Key West Thursday night and more rain Friday through the weekend.

This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 1:10 PM.

Gwen Filosa

Miami Herald

Gwen Filosa covers Key West and the Lower Florida Keys for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald and lives in Key West. She was part of the staff at the New Orleans Times-Picayune that in 2005 won two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She graduated from Indiana University.