SUP Witches Festival Made for a Magical Day in Sleepy Hollow
News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
On Sunday, a ghastly sight could be seen along the shores of Sleepy Hollow: a coven of witches floating along the Hudson River at the fifth annual SUP Witches Festival and Paddle Parade.
Ghouls, goblins, warlocks and witches descended upon Sleepy Hollow’s Kingsland Point Park, where locals and visitors dressed in their finest witch and wizard garb and ditched the brooms for paddles to glide along the Hudson River. The spellbinding scene attracted paddleboarders from near and far to make some wicked waves.
Lauren Wasserman, 32, from Essex County, N.J., paddled at SUP Witches (the acronym for Standup Paddleboarding) for the first time on Sunday with her two-year-old dog, Enso.
“I was too scared to stand, but we went knees up, and Enso decided to take a dip in the water,” Wasserman said. “I don’t know why, because he hates water, but immediately he regretted it.”
Hillary Deutsch, of Meridian, Conn., drove over an hour to join the witches paddle parade. She decked out her green and orange ISLE epoxy paddleboard with tiny skeletons, faux red and orange autumn leaves, ravens and small pumpkins, which matched her pumpkin costume.
“So I’m an angry pumpkin,” Deutsch said. “I am defending all of my little mini pumpkin friends on my board.”
“Little bit of rocking and rolling on the paddle boards,” Deutsch noted. “But it was really beautiful. Lots of sun, it was nice.”
Philipsburg Manor resident Lori Cerrone paddled while pulling her two daughters, Aria, 5, and four-year-old Ava, behind her in a small boat.
“It was wonderful,” Cerrone said of her time on the water. “I thought it was just so wonderful to see all those silhouettes of the witches against the mountains. And then I think it was also very cool to see the silhouettes of the witches against the lighthouse and the bridge. And it was beautiful.
Tara Schiller, the owner and founder of Rivertowns SUP & Yoga based in Tarrytown, has spent the last five years working her magic to make SUP Witches an annual event.
“So I had seen it [witch paddleboarding parades] being done in other locations across the country,” Schiller said. “I have a friend in Oregon who does it, and a light bulb went on, and I was thinking, ‘I have a paddleboarding business, and I live in Sleepy Hollow, which is like the mecca of Halloween, aside from Salem in terms of witches, how can I not do this when I have this business, and this is where I live?’ So I did. It was very quickly put together the first year. It was very spontaneous.”
In that first year of SUP Witches, 16 witches took to the water. In the years since the inaugural paddle, the small event has grown into a large community festival, hosting more than 100 paddlers and outgrowing its original location of Horan’s Landing in Sleepy Hollow.
This year, Kingsland Point Park, the village’s 18-acre waterfront park, hosted a packed park full of festival attendees enjoying the beautiful, sunny day, sans the water. The festival, which cost $30 for paddlers, was free for those who stayed on land.
SUP Witches offered plenty of non-aquatic activities, including face painting, arts and crafts and a bubble tent for the little witches and warlocks.
Over 30 vendors offered scary-good refreshments at the festival. Festival attendees could stock up on magical merchandise, including healing crystals from La Luna Healing and Crystals, homemade quilts, blankets and accessories from Stitch Witch Creative and earthy copper decor from Ground Road Copper. Terrapin Rose, a metaphysical flower, plant and crystal shop in Dobbs Ferry, had a booth where attendees could get their Tarot cards read.
After the paddle, there was a reading of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” from Ian Berger, a middle school English teacher and paddleboard instructor with HV H20 in Peekskill.
As Berger enthralled the fans about the tales of Ichabod Crane, the village’s fabled mascot, the Headless Horseman, rode into the festival on his large black steed, taking photos with visitors.
Vanessa Garcia, of Teaneck, N.J. learned about the festival and its costume contest on TikTok, and came in her finest witch’s wardrobe. Topped with a tall black hat, a skeleton corset and a velvet-lined cape, Garcia crafted the perfect witchy wear.
“So far, the day is wonderful,” Garcia said. “Lots of vendors, a lot of people turned out. We were surprised. So we’re excited to be here.”
