Swimming Pigs in Paradise

If you’re ever in The Exumas, visiting the swimming pigs on the uninhabited Big Major Cay is definitely one to tick off the bucketlist. We spent two weeks sailing down the chain of islands surrounded by impossibly clear, turquoise water that seems to glow. About a week after leaving Nassau and after spending the night moored at Staniel Cay Yacht Club, we sailed over to Pig Beach and swam to shore.

We thought we had the wrong spot as there wasn’t a pig in sight, but when they heard us dropping anchor and calling for them they came trotting out of the shade of the almond trees! They were super friendly and ran straight into the water to say hi. Although, I’m pretty sure I’d run too if food was involved…

We had brought a pig friendly salad of fruit and vegetable scraps to feed them but they knew exactly what was in the bag! So it became a legit game of piggy in the middle as we all threw the bag to each other while they chased us around for their breakfast! Some of the pigs are massive up close and I’m pretty sure we were squealing more than them at this point!

Eventually, tired out from all the activity under the tropical sunshine, they cooled off in the sea and posed for some pictures…No one is really sure how they made it onto the island but legend suggests that the pigs were either dropped off by sailors who intended to come back and cook them, or that there was a shipwreck nearby and the pigs swam to shore.   It was all too much for this guy who had to have a post breakfast snooze. The pigs have survived here as the island has freshwater springs, and of course because they regularly get fed by passing travellers.  I genuinely could not tell you how long we spent there, time seemed to stand still. It’s the most amazing place and I can’t recommend it enough. But no-one ever seems to talk about the dark side of Pig Beach… It’s paradise – there cannot be ?!! Well this was how they greeted me…

After an hour (or two? three? not a clue…) we paddled back to the boat to discover one of our friends had been stung by a jellyfish 🙁 He was ok but after getting home to London and googling, we’re now pretty sure that the ‘cure’ everyone talks about is a myth! Oops…

We loved Pig Beach and the Mr. is now dead set on getting his day skipper license so that we can live on a boat and open a beach bar (at least I hope that’s the reason…)