While kayak fishing off the coast of Islamorada, near Tavernier creek just inside of Cowpens Cut,  I came across one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen in the Florida Keys.

Paddling up a channel I started to see a bunch of toilet seats mounted on posts on both sides and found out later the locals called it “Toilet Seat Cut” and there’s a story to it.

Back in the 1950s a man named Vernon Lamp, an avid fisherman decided he wanted a quicker way to nearby Founders Park,  which was a hot place to visit at that time. 

In the bayside areas of the Florida Keys the water tends to be much shallower and difficult to navigate, so Lamp decided to clear a path (4-6 feet wide) through a seagrass bed to make his own shortcut.  

He put a couple poles in to stake the entrance and the exit,  to mark his way.   While the process is illegal nowadays due to harm it poses to the environment, Lamp ultimately managed to carve out his shortcut through the bay.

But in 1960 the channel would get a new look when Hurricane Donna– one of the strongest hurricanes to hit Florida (200 mph with 13 ft storm surge) struck the Keys as a Category 4 hurricane,  killing several people and leaving destruction in its wake.

In the aftermath of Donna’s rampage though, Lamp found a toilet seat was left snagged from one of the pole markers along the cut.

Now Vernon apparently was a character that had a good sense of humor, so he took the toilet seat home, cleaned it, painted it and posted it back on that same post. 

From that day forward, the trend caught on with locals who decorated their own toilet seats to place along the cut, earning the genuinely unique landmark its name.

These markers weren’t just unique art pieces though, because they help designate both sides of the cut so boaters didn’t accidentally ground themselves in the surrounding shallow waters.

Nowadays, Toilet Seat Cut is littered with dozens of these lavatorial art projects.   If a storm blows one away, another is sure to take its place.

It’s not all just a joke though, some of them honor people who died, people who moved away.  There’s names, dates, birthdays, anniversaries– lots of remembrances.

There are scores of them now, we counted over 250.

One from probably a local says “Fish somewhere else, it’s shitty here”. 

Now Toilet Seat Cut is open to the public, so there are plenty of opportunities to take a look for yourself,  and while a boat might make the journey easier than a kayak or canoe,  just be careful about the shallow bay waters. 

Toilet Seat Cut always reminds me of the fun-loving, resourceful spirit that makes the Florida Keys such a special place. 

So when you’re heading south on Route 1 and you pass Plantation at around mile marker 90,  it’s to your left over there.