Is­land Life En­ter­tain­ment got the jump on the com­pe­ti­tion with re­spect to rein­vent­ing the fun as­pect of par­ty life in T&T. Mes­sag­ing the well known fact that the Trin­bag­on­ian ap­petite for fun was huge, prin­ci­pals with the event out­fit-in an ef­fort to sat­is­fy par­ty wild of its fan base-tapped their imag­i­na­tion and dreamt up a spec­tac­u­lar fun event called Si La Barge Cool­er Fete held on Ju­ly 24. It was not held on land, nei­ther was the event staged on board a boat or yacht. But, it was on wa­ter-aboard an 80-foot barge an­chored in wa­ters off Ch­aguara­mas. That's where the par­ty mob dis­em­barked from the shut­tles board­ed at the An­chor­age, Ch­aguara­mas, with cool­ers filled with pre­mi­um drinks worth thou­sands of dol­lars to toast the pure vibes event.

A whole new world

Frol­ick­ing aboard the MF Trea­sure Queen or the First La­dy would not com­pare to the au­ra that filled the barge. By the way, this was the sec­ond in­stall­ment of Si La Barge for the year. On­ly the lat­ter, how­ev­er, was opened to the print me­dia. Judg­ing from the lay­out on the ves­sel, every­one was made to feel right at home. The dee­jays fu­elled the vibe from an el­e­vat­ed plat­form, while the sump­tu­ous cui­sine con­ces­sion stalls were wise­ly placed at the en­trance to the barge. If the in­tent was to fa­cil­i­tate more par­ty room, then the mis­sion was ac­com­plished. Still, get­ting a bite re­mained a chal­lenge since the crowd was thick. Fur­ther, the wash­rooms were ap­pro­pri­ate­ly lo­cat­ed and marked at the back of the venue, and se­cu­ri­ty was tight both on and off the barge.

Rain on­ly stops crick­et: It's noth­ing short of amaz­ing that Si La Barge ac­tu­al­ly took place. This cit­ing that storm-like weath­er per­vad­ed T&T for most of the day. Tor­ren­tial rains fea­tured dur­ing the morn­ing and ear­ly af­ter­noon, and it seemed that thrill seek­ers were pray­ing hard for a break in the weath­er sys­tem that would en­sure that their fun would not be stopped. Their prayers were an­swered. The ex­cite­ment was pal­pa­ble on Hart's Cut Road, Ch­aguara­mas, where pa­trons as­sem­bled to be­gin the jour­ney to Si La Barge. West In­dies crick­ets Dwayne Bra­vo and Lendl Sim­monds, as well as for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller Stern John did not miss out on the ac­tion, and for good rea­son.

Girls rule the barge

Lyrics for Ben­nie Man's My Dick­ie rushed to mind while rec­ol­lect­ing the beau­teous sights that await­ed on the barge. It cer­tain­ly un­der­scored why pro­mot­ers print gen­der as­signed tick­ets for their events. But de­mand for Si La Barge caused of­fi­cials at Is­land Life En­ter­tain­ment to eas­i­ly sell male tick­ets to en­hance the fe­male pop­u­la­tion aboard. And there was no deny­ing they were sexy, as women went all out to com­ply with the beach­wear dress­code. They stepped in their funky flip flops, de­sign­ers swim­suits, rock­ing sig­na­ture eye­wear. The men in at­ten­dance were not be out-styled judg­ing from their col­lec­tion of dark glass­es, and many kicked back in their board shorts. When they board­ed the barge and broke the ice, their T-shirts came off.

The fun won't stop: Make no mis­take, the dee­jays at Si La Barge came pre­pared to ex­cite. Each worked to out-per­form the oth­er, which en­sured that the hype was sus­tained, and as a con­se­quence, the fun nev­er stopped. Trevlyn, Pri­vate Ryan and Jase, Hol­ly­wood Sachy and DJ Dane of­fered clever nar­ra­tives and styles that brought some­thing spe­cial to the undi­lut­ed at­mos­pher­ic fun. But it was Trevlyn who changed the tex­ture of the event. Sched­uled to take the mi­cro­phone to cli­max of the par­ty, he de­liv­ered on a promise to of­fer a reper­toire that was dif­fer­ent from what went be­fore, play­ing 2011 so­ca hits as well as throw back that re­tained the state of fren­zy. Call for feters to start board­ing the wa­ter taxis ear­ly to avoid a mad rush did not come easy, since the fes­tive bunch did not want the won­drous ex­pe­ri­ence to end.