Big Major Cay, what’s commonly referred to as “Pig Beach” in the Exumas. An uninhabited island home to about 10-20 swimming piggies!! These guys aren’t shy at all, as we pulled up to the island they dived right in to greet us. We also brought some sliced apples and grapes along with us, they like to be fed, just no citrus or “table scraps”.  We enjoyed the baby pigs more than the bigger ones, mainly because they were more friendly and easy to pet and interact with. The larger ones come directly for you since they know you most likely have food. A few of them will buck at you if they get unhappy. The trick was to not be so visible with the food, keep it behind your back or pocket until you are ready to feed them. We also parked our dinghy further down to the left of the beach, then walked over to them. They’ll try jumping up onto the boats while in the water and with their sharp hooves thats not a good situation for an inflatable dinghy.

So the piggy below with the black dots is Big Mama Karma and “just like karma she will bite you in the butt!” Haha, theres lots of signage for visitors but its a play at your own risk kinda thing. Legend is, the pigs were dropped off by a group of sailors who wanted to come back and cook them. The sailors, never returned and the pigs survived on excess food dumped from passing ships. The other is that the pigs survived a shipwreck and managed to swim to shore.

During the day, this beach was crowded. Tons of guided tour boats coming in every 15 mins with loads of passengers. It got a little chaotic as we were leaving (11am). We went back again in the afternoon around sunset and it was really nice and calm. We were anchored right in front of pig beach for two nights, so we could see up onto the shore from our boat then just took the dinghy back over when the crowds left. Sunset was really pretty too! By then most of the piggies were snuggled up in the sand just lounging peacefully.

Cheers from the Bahamas!