Wearing wimples, wigs and even a shark head, Belgians hopped into giant floating pumpkins to take part in a relay race across a pond, resurrecting an annual tradition halted by the Covid pandemic.
To win the regatta, teams of four had to be first to race round a hut in the middle of the pond in the northern town of Kasterlee, before driving their paddles into a hollowed-out pumpkin on the opposing shore.
Organisers said the event began as a way of putting the oversized vegetables grown for competitions to good use, but that they had been a victim of their own success - many are now too big.
"We have fewer and fewer pumpkins that can be used as a boat. That might be a problem in the coming years," said the president of the Kasterlee Pumpkin Society, Paul Boonen.
"The reason why we started is that years ago, we (the Kasterlee Pumpkin Society) started competing (to grow the biggest pumpkin) and after the competition we were stuck with huge pumpkins.
"We started thinking about what we could do with them and we found out that in the US they were already boating with pumpkins. We decided that we could do this as well in Kasterlee, but instead of using one or two pumpkins like in the US, we boat with around 20 of them," he said.
The flesh is hollowed out of the giant winter squashes in the morning and turned into soup before the main races - split into children's, women's, men's and mixed competitions.
This year, the race was fully booked in three days with 65 teams of four people signing up - some of whom had travelled specially to take part.
"It's dirty, it's sticky, it's oily and you have the feeling that you may be in the water anytime," said Spanish-born Oscar Guell, 36, who travelled from Brussels for the occasion.
