Swimming with the Pigs at Staniel Cay

Robinleigh on the Map

While waiting for the winds to settle, we anchored off Big Majors Spot just North of Staniel Cay in the Exumas.  It is a big anchorage with LOTS of boats in it. It's popular because you can get to a few restaurants and a grocery store by dingy and the WiFi is not terrible (not free either but at least it's present!)

Thursday we waited for low tide and took a trip to Thunderball Grotto. The cave was made famous by a scene in the James Bond film, Thunderball. At low tide you can swim under a ledge and it opens into a pretty large cave. While putting on our snorkeling gear, Charles broke the strap on one of his fins. He had to test out whether he could swim with just one fin before we attempted to go through the cave entrance. The tide was not running too hard but the wind driven waves were fierce!

As we approached the cave entrance the fish came to greet us. A large school of Sergeant Majors was very friendly. We swam around inside the cave for a while and then headed back to the dingy. Charles threw me a ziplock full of frozen peas and I fed the fish for a few minutes. Did you know Sargent Majors have tiny teeth? I do now - they were all over me!

Here's what the grotto looks like on the inside - not my photo, we don't have a waterproof camera at the moment (bummer)...

On the way back to the boat we saw the wild pigs on the beach at Big Majors Spot. They are famous for mooching from the sailors and as we approached by dingy two of them came into the water to greet us. We didn't have any food to offer so we were trying to stay clear of the pigs but they wanted very much to greet us.

Once we were on the beach the pigs ignored us and went about trying to get into a dingy already pulled up on the beach beside us. I tried to scratch the ear of a smaller sow and she almost bit my leg - after that I stayed back a bit. Just as we thought the pigs had given up on the dingy, a big one got his hooves over the side and grabbed a small bag of what looked like garbage. I tried to shoo them off but Charles told me that was a good way to get bitten so I took his advice and left them to their spoils.