We had heard about the swimming pigs of Staniel Cay even before we left New Bern and put it on our list of places to go. So far, we have been swimming with rays, sharks, sea turtles, a spotted eel and lots of fish-so pigs are something new to add to the list!
A group of about 20 pigs and piglets live on the otherwise uninhabited island of Big Majors Spot. No one knows exactly how they got there, possibly from a shipwreck, but they have been there a very long time. There are three freshwater springs on the island and lots of boaters bring food to feed them so they look very healthy!
Some friends of ours who had visited earlier said that a big female tried to climb into their dinghy and they were afraid the hoofs were going to puncture the dinghy so we brought our dinghy into the shore at the opposite end of the beach from them and walked over. We saw several large females and a bunch of piglets, but no sign of any boar (although clearly they must be here judging by the number of piglets). We took some soft potatoes and bits of carrot and parsnip ends to feed them. Once they realized I had food, they rushed towards me with their big piggy snouts sniffing the air. It was a bit intimidating because some of the big females are REALLY large and make all sorts of grunting noises! The little piglets were pretty cute though and much shyer. They have terrible eyesight and had trouble finding the food on the beach.
Little piglet
Happy pig!
They are not attractive animals!
Once we ran out of food, we jumped into the dinghy and rowed out a ways to escape! David realized they couldn’t tell rocks from food until they got their noses on them, so he threw rocks a little away from our dinghy which distracted them long enough for us to make an escape. The pigs don’t seem all that fond of swimming after all. I think they have gotten a bit spoiled in recent years because so many boaters come to them and feed them on the beach now. The pigs will wade out into the water, but only one actually swam out to us. We had some stale graham crackers in the dinghy to feed the fish so we threw these into the water and she really seemed to like them! A small nurse shark swam by but the pig didn’t seem concerned.
The one pig who actually swam out to our dinghy! Looks like she is saying "Help!"
Swimming rewarded with a graham cracker!
After seeing the pigs, we dinghied around the corner to the famous Thunderball Grotto. It has been used in two James Bond movies as well as some other films. We snorkeled through the small cave entrance into a huge grotto with lots of different rooms and sunlight streaming in through an opening in the ceiling. The pictures don’t do it justice. You could just imagine a bunch of pirates hiding all their booty in here! It is not at all obvious that there is a cave inside this island so it would have made a great hiding place! We are going to see if we can find a copy of the movie to watch!
That evening, we had yet another gorgeous sunset while anchored all alone in a picturesque anchorage off North Gaulin Cay.
We have discovered if we shine a spotlight in the water at night, it attracts swarms of tiny blue iridescent fish. David likes to train them to swim in circles as they follow the light. We saw something new last night-a squid. It darted in and out of the swarm gobbling up the fish. This was our first experience seeing squid in the wild. It finally drifted back down toward the bottom. We’re thinking it ate so many little blue fish that it sank.
We did get a sobering reminder that things can go wrong. One of the pictures is a wrecked boat on a nearby island. It doesn’t take much to go wrong if the wind is blowing hard for one of these picturesque little islands to become the final resting place of a once nice boat.
The Bahamas are full of natural rugged beauty with interesting coral formations, pristine sandy beaches with the softest sand and crystal clear turquoise water. The pictures just cannot capture it. Before we came here, I thought of the Bahamas as just a cruise ship stopping point. I had no idea that so much of it is uninhabited and totally undeveloped. Unless you have a boat to explore the 700+ islands and get away from the cruise ship stops, you cannot get a real glimpse of what a gorgeous place this is. We also remain impressed with how nice the people are and how genuinely happy they seem to see all of us cruiser people.