The annual costume party in Saint Lucia is usually the biggest party of the week (save for tomorrow’s prizegiving), and last night’s was certainly the wildest. The theme for 2014 was ‘Naughty or Nice,’ the Saint Lucia Tourism Board’s take on Christmas. And while there were some santa’s and some angels roaming around, some of the participants took that theme in slightly different directions.
“I’m Tom Hanks,” said one participant, shirtless and carrying around a mock-up of Wilson the volleyball from the iconic film Castaway. Why Tom Hanks? “He’s the nicest guy in Hollywood!” Clever.
Another participant was dressed rather normally, save for a belt strapped across his chest containing several individual-sized cereal boxes (think of Chewbacca’s ammo belt from Star Wars and you’ll get the picture), and carrying a toy water gun.
“I’m naughty,” he said. “I’m a ‘cereal’ killer.” Zinger!
The Swedish twenty-somethings from Thalassa, the smallest boat in the fleet this year, took the naughty theme to mean bare-skinned and tatted up. They wore matching bright yellow swim shorts, went bare-chested and covered themselves in temporary tattoos.
“Check out my tramp stamp!” said one of them, referring to the enormous phoenix ‘tattooed’ on his lower back. They also donned matching captain’s hats. We’re not sure how naughty they were, but they certainly looked ridiculous!
ARC staff also cleverly interpreted the theme. We wore matching blue t-shirts, red caps and tied yellow three-strand rope around our waists, each with our own unique knot. Get it? We were the ‘Knotty’ ARC team. It was worth at least a few chuckles.
The party itself got off to a slow start as participants trickled in to the Saint Lucia Yacht Club, a new venue for the event this year. The location on the beach beneath the stars was the proverbial ‘nice spot.’ The MC – dressed in his ‘naughty’ best in a bath robe pretending to be Playboy founder Hugh Heffner – got the crowd warmed up, and a steel pan band performed on the beach to get things started.
Later in the evening, the party quiet literally heated up. The ‘Stars International’ group performed an extended limbo competition on the stage, with most of the children from the ARC family boats delightfully playing along. A few adults had their hand at ‘going low’ as well. They couldn’t match the final act though.
After an exciting performance by the Stars’ fire breather, they lit the limbo pole on fire and placed it only 18 inches off the ground. The lead ‘Star’ somehow squeezed under, the bar actually lower than his knees, and proceeded to complete about six consecutive backflips on the stage as the final act, to great applause.
A live band then took the stage and played into the wee hours of the morning as the alcohol flowed freely from the nearby bar.
How ‘nice’ everyone that stayed late is feeling this morning is another question.