This little piggy…

…went to the beach!

And this little piggy…decided he better come too because it is so freaking gorgeous here in the Bahamas!!!!!!!!!

And duh, they totally set up shop because who wouldn’t want to build their home at one of the most beautiful places on Earth? ;))

These adorable pigs are living on what’s commonly referred to as “Pig Beach” here in the Exumas. And Pig Beach has always been at the very top of my must-see-and-do list since we started planning this little adventure. It’s technically the tiny uninhabited island known as Big Major’s Spot…adjacent to Staniel Cay.

For a few nights, we anchored right in front of pig beach. There are about 10 to 20 pigs living on the island with several theories on how they originated. Some say the pigs were dropped off on Big Major by a group of sailors who wanted to come back and cook them. The sailors, though, never returned; the pigs survived on excess food dumped from passing ships. One other legend has it that the pigs were survivors of a shipwreck and managed to swim to shore, while another claims that the pigs had escaped from a nearby islet.

In any case, they’ve definitely grown accustomed to people visiting by boat and bringing food scraps and tasty treats. While anchored right off the beach, we watched numerous dinghies and small powerboats mosey over to the island and feed the pigs. Believe me, they have the routine down pat, and are basically waiting in the wings until they hear the dinner bell, aka an engine approaching their beach. Then, they all scurry out of the trees and bushes and a few even get in the water and swim to the boats. This process repeats itself many times each day.

We waited until there weren’t any boats ashore and headed over to feed the pigs ourselves.

We didn’t have any “fresh” food (carrots, lettuce, that sort of thing) that we were willing to part ways with so we opted for some equally delicious saltine crackers. ;)) Okay, probably not equally as delicious, but saltine crackers are one pantry item we could definitely afford to give up.

As expected, the pigs immediately ran out as we approached the beach, and a few even swam out greet us! They are pretty fast swimmers believe it or not. But not as agile as those darn seagulls that scooped in to grab way more crackers than the pigs were able to while paddling in the water. Poor guys.

We didn’t really want any of the huge oinkers to try and hop in our dink, so I quickly jumped out with the GoPro and crackers in hand while Jer secretly dinghied aways down the beach to “park” the dinghy.

The family of pigs weren’t aggressive at all *with us* although they eagerly approached and kept opening their mouths for food. The big momma pigs did seem a little intimidating at first simply based on their massive size. But they all quickly settled down once we had run out of crackers and held up our empty hands to show them “no more food.” :))) They may or may not have actually gummed at Jer’s pockets after he stowed the plastic wrapper from the empty cracker sleeve. I think that may have freaked Jer out a little.

We hung out with the whole group of pigs for about 30 minutes…taking TONS of photos and some GoPro footage, and possibly even sneaking a few pets. ;))

This gold little spotted pig was my favorite. With the two pink piglets a close second.

Once we had soaked up the total “pig beach” experience we casually walked down to our dinghy (surprisingly without being followed) and dinghied away as another boat was headed to shore.

What’s not to LOVE about beach piggies, right? It was an AWESOME experience! Check out our fun little GoPro video of Pig Beach at Big Major’s Spot in the Exumas…

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