Swimming Pigs!

1.30.11

We left early this morning for a short trip down to Staniel Cay, only about 5 miles. We were there within an hour and somewhat dismayed to find that the anchorage we had chosen was filled with other boats – 24 of them to be precise! At least we knew it was a good anchorage! We butted up to some of them, dropped anchor and headed in to Staniel Cay – the first civilization after exiting the Exuma Land and Sea Park, this was supposed to be a good place to provision and fill water and fuel.
We were greeted by “Quality Time”, who was leaving just as set our anchor – it seems they are always just a day or two ahead of us! And we were ecstatic to find “Wind Dancer” (the 57' Hylas) at the docks when we finally made it into town. It seemed that Terry had left Mike there while he went back to Florida for a bit and was undecided if he was coming back and when. So, Mike had been there a week and although there are worse places to be “stuck”, it can be a bit boring if you are traveling alone. So he was happy to see us and joined us for lunch at the marina restaurant.
We had arrived at the island on a Sunday, and the whole town was shut down (as apparently it is every weekend, all weekend). We did get to see a few small planes land and take off at the airport, and we located the grocer, although he was also closed.
We had a few drinks with Mike at the docks and then we all headed out to where our boat was anchored. We had actually anchored off Big Majors Spot, a small island just to the North of Staniel Cay that provides a bit more protection and is also home to the infamous swimming pigs! So, I cut up some produce that was about to go bad and we headed out to the beach. We were not to be let down. We were immediately greeted by two large pigs that moseyed right down the beach, into the water and swam right out to our dinghy! We threw some of the produce in and they ate what they could, but they are really not coordinated enough to swim and eat at the same time. We laughed and took a million pictures and then went up to the next beach to see if we could see the goats that supposedly inhabited the North end of the island -quite an exciting little island it would seem!
Unfortunately, we didn't see any goats, but we did find three baby pigs (weighing at least 100lbs each) that were a bit more shy, munching some undergrowth up on the beach. We fed them some food and they allowed us to get a little closer, but ran when you tried to touch them.
We went back to the boat for some sundowners and all had a good laugh over the swimming pigs. Tomorrow we go to Thunderball Grotto, where one of James Bonds movies was filmed (I believe it is called Thunderball?!), for some snorkeling and fish feeding!