After our stay at Norman’s, we continued south to Staniel Cay. On our way we passed this HUGE mega yacht, complete with the helicopter on the back. It was definitely the biggest yacht that we’ve ever seen. EVER. All we could do was stare at it with our mouths hanging open as it slowly passed by. You know there had to be someone pretty darn rich important onboard. We heard later that Johnny Depp was getting married on his private island which was like 10 miles north of us. We literally passed it on the sail down that morning. I’m assuming that’s where this yacht was headed. Guess our invite got lost in the mail. Damn mail boats are so slow down here!
We were excited to see the famous swimming pigs, which are actually on Big Major’s Cay, right next to Staniel, and is uninhabited except for the pigs. I’m assuming that the locals didn’t want to share their island with a bunch of feral pigs and “relocated” them to the next island over. Totally understandable. Especially after we saw how aggressive they get when you approach them with food. We were careful to toss our bread out and away from our dinghy because we heard that they would jump right in to search for food. Sure enough, as we were leaving, another dinghy pulled up close to shore and didn’t get their food out quick enough, and a huge pig the size of a bear just climbed right on over the side and grabbed their bag right out of their boat. It was pretty funny to watch, only because it wasn’t our dinghy they were trying to board.
Supposedly, they’re not the same pigs each year. I guess Staniel Cay is also well known for it’s yearly pig roasts. Mmmm….
Later on, after we were sure the pigs had been well fed from all the tour boats stopping by all day, we actually went ashore to try to hand feed them. Matt hopped out of the dinghy first with a loaf of bread in his pocket and sure enough, the big piggy began chasing him around the beach for the food. Funny for me. Not so much for Matt. Luckily he survived with only a light nip on the shorts.
Once the big pig had eaten everything we had and thoroughly sniffed us both to make sure we were definitely empty, he just turned and walked away, totally uninterested now that we were out of food. We took the opportunity to pet some of the smaller ones, who liked having their bellies scratched like dogs. They were actually pretty sweet. I had quite the following by the end of the afternoon.
The following day we set out to do some exploring and discovered this small hiking trail that circles the perimeter of the island. There were some great views of the ocean on the back side of the trail. I still can’t get over how beautiful the water is! Stripes of turquoise and aqua everywhere. We saw these interesting mounds of rocks that we think were trail markers. We added our rock as we passed and wished for fair winds, following seas, and for our anchor to not drag like we’d heard of others doing the night before. Betcha don’t have to worry about that on land!
After our hike we rewarded ourselves with a few beers because we were hot and I trust the quality of beer more than the water here. It’s a rough life, we know.
We had some fun doing a little swimming off the back of the boat. Big Major’s Cay has a beautiful sandy bottom so it was pretty much like swimming in one gigantic pool. Another benefit of the all sand bottom is that Matt can easily see any dark shadows approaching the boat and be able to hop out of the water at lightning speed. I think he felt more comfortable playing lifeguard as I swam. He’s never going to be able to live that one down.
The big thing to do on Staniel is go to the yacht club. Aside from their overpriced food and drinks, it has a really nice atmosphere. We walked over to where the fishermen were cleaning their catch and had a pretty close up view of some nurse sharks. I even reached down to pet a few, just to see what their skin felt like. Nurse sharks are harmless and I was on my second beer, so I was feeling pretty confidant. They feel leathery, by the way. It was cool.
Oh yeah, and we finally had our Cheeseburgers in Paradise, and boy were they delicious!
