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[title]In recent years, swimming with feral pigs has become the go-to excursion in the Bahamas. Countless TikToks and Instagram Reels have captured this adorable encounter on the pristine beach of Big Major Cay. Pink and black piggies swimming around with excited tourists in the crystal-clear water seems like a scene out of heaven for animal lovers.
These pigs—which primarily live in a pack of about 20, over 30 nautical miles from Nassau on Big Major Cay in Exuma—see tourists on a near-daily basis. That’s why when I booked my trip to the Bahamas this month, seeing the swimming pigs was number one on my to-do list. So when I was one of about 30 people waiting, carrots in hand, for pigs to stampede toward us, I knew I had realized a dream. But the Bahamas are so incredible that I soon realized they weren’t the best part of this excursion.
Instead of traveling to Big Major Cay for the official Exuma swimming pigs experience, my tour was to Ship Channel Cay, a private Bahamian island owned by Powerboat Adventures.
I booked my trip to Nassau through JetBlue Vacations, so I was set up with a local travel company for any bookings on and off the island. Majestic Tours and JetBlue booked me with Powerboat Adventures, which picks clients up from their respective resorts on Paradise Island and takes them directly to the Paradise Island Ferry Terminal. Here, along with about 50 other brave adventure seekers, I boarded a 60-foot jet boat that would whisk us southwest at 40 mph to Exuma and the private island of Ship Channel Cay.
If you’re looking to really see the Caribbean and its remote islands, this is a good way to do it. The excursion lasts seven hours and you spend time on two islands—Ship Channel Cay and Allan’s Cay. Along the way, we were in the middle of the open sea, which changes in color from a dark blue to an aquamarine depending on the cloud cover. Occasionally, there'd be a passing boat, but for the most part, it was very isolated. When we finally came upon remote islands, they were a welcome sight and had a surprise!
On Allan's Cay, a cluster of three uninhabited islands, lives the critically endangered Allen’s Cay Rock Iguana. Powerboat Adventures visitors disembark and are given long skewer sticks and grapes to feed these reptiles, which can be as long as 4 feet. I'm not a reptile person, but it was a joy feeding these fatties. They'd run up, grab my grapes and run off. Sometimes they'd beat each other out like they were racing in a 100-meter dash. We were only there for about 15 minutes, but I was charmed and they were full.
Once we reached Ship Channel Cay, only after going full speed to the Mission Impossible soundtrack as Captain Nigel insisted, we were let loose to enjoy snacks and a full, open bar (I ordered a rum punch) inside a converted fishing cottage on the island, and sunbathe or swim until activities began. The idea of swimming at a private island's beach never seemed like a possibility or something I'd ever fathom, but getting a taste of it was a moment I'll always smile about. The incredibly beautiful, clean, cool water was refreshing as it gently lapped against the powder-soft and white sand.
The island itself is two miles long and half a mile wide and is the epitome of an oasis. You can actually book an overnight stay there if remote living is your thing. We got to know the residents after our hours-long stay: stingrays, pigs and sharks. Yes, sharks. To my astonishment, the stingrays were the friendliest of the bunch. One lovingly nicknamed "Angel" was so friendly that she'd swim up to your feet for pets and flap her "wings" up on your legs. Sure, she knew it was feeding time, but it was no less magical. We fed them fish out of our hands. Like a vacuum, they'd swim over our fish-filled fingers and suck them up.
Finally, the moment I’d been waiting for—swimming with the pigs. Big swine waddled out to the shoreline but hesitated to get in the water. Why swim for carrots? I wouldn’t. We called them and waved our carrots in the air until a brave oinker made his way into the water. Then they all followed suit. One by one, they swam out to the line of humans holding carrots and picked up three or four at a time before returning to the sand to gobble them down. It was a hoot watching them grab the veggies and doggy paddle back to the shore. One of them pooped in the water and that was the end of it.
While you don’t get to swim with sharks there, you do get to watch the Powerboat Adventure guides feed them fish on a line. They know it’s time for lunch, so the school of reef sharks seemingly appeared out of nowhere ready to get their chomps in. Everyone stayed on shore as we watched these powerful fish vie for their meal.
Our meal was homecooked by the staffers and included baked white fish, fried chicken, a bean salad, a pasta salad, hamburgers and hot dogs, along with any drink you wanted. Then, standing at a table in the water, they caught a conch and demonstrated how to make a fresh conch salad in the Bahamas tradition (the freshest conch, peppers, onion and lime). How much fresher can you get?
Truly beat from a day in the sun meeting new people and animal friends, I fell asleep on the powerboat home, despite the water being kicked up in its wake next to my head. The day was much more than I had anticipated and gave me a sense of the Bahamas that I was looking for. So, if you're going to take an hour-long boat trip to the middle of nowhere to swim with pigs, consider this: the best things you do may be what you least expected.
