A pair of Greater Victoria women is calling on all witches, wizards and wannabes to get out their hats and watercraft for a paddle on Thetis Lake to kick off fall.
Witchy paddles are popular around Halloween, but Divya Kapila of Victoria and cohost Sarah Lavoie of Langford invite folks out to the View Royal waterway for the second What’SUP Witches paddle on Saturday, Oct. 5 from 2 to 4 p.m.
For them, it’s more of a welcome to the fall weather while saying goodbye to summer, Kapila said.
Intended as an annual affair, the 2023 event had to be cancelled at the last minute but 2022 saw more than 100 people out on the water, Kapila said.
“We started it super last minute in 2022, at that point I’d only been on a paddleboard less than five times,” Kapila said with a laugh. But following a wonderful weekend of camping on a lake, she arrived home and promptly purchased a paddleboard.
She started poking around online seeing all the “fun fall events,” including Halloween witches paddles in Portland, Toronto and Vancouver.
“I looked around online to see if I could find one in Victoria,” she said. She did, but at the end of the month and on the ocean.
“That wasn’t accessible because we were all so new on our boards,” Kapila said.
The opted to plan their own, with warmer weather and on the lake and threw the details online, inviting one and all to don their magical caps and come out – paddleboards, kayaks, canoes and whatnot.
“It just kind of blew up from there actually,” she said, adding more than 100 people came out. “I know there must have been more without hats.”
They’ve scored a 25 per cent discount that day from Pally Pally paddleboard rentals – just down the street from Thetis – with witches25% code.
Find the co-hosts selling a limited supply of hats – find them at the table with witch hats for sale by donation (with DIY’d chin straps to keep them on heads) – and funds raised donated to a local food bank just ahead of Thanksgiving.
A photographer will be on hand in a kayak to capture the memories of the casual paddle. There will be no official instruction, leadership or lifeguard.
To join the fun, participants are asked to wear black and witches hats and bring a paddleboard, kayak, canoe or safe floatie.
The second What’SUP Witches paddle event is Saturday, Oct. 5 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Thetis Lake main beach.
