Big Majors Spot

The answer to the riddle from the last blog - did anyone guess it? - pigs!  We went to Big Majors Spot where there are feral pigs on the island.  People everywhere we met encouraged us to come here to see the colony of feral pigs that come to your boat looking for a handout. We arrived at Big Majors but did not see all the pigs we were told about. We anchored and got in our dinghy and went to the beach where they should have been. There was one big female pig on the beach eating some "slop" from a big tub. Behind her was a small baby pig. All the other pigs had already eaten a lot of food from other visitors and were napping elsewhere on the island. I was happy to at least get to see these two!

Besides the Pigs there were Roosters and Chickens

Female pig eating out of her tub. All kinds of food was in there - carrots, hot dog buns, green veggies. To the pig I am sure it was all delicious, but it did not look appetizing at all to me!

Baby Pig - she (or he) was a lot shyer that the big pig

Two girls came on the beach and were feeding the pig tortillas. The pig happily left her bucket for the tortillas!

They led the pig into the water with one.

 My turn for feeding her!  I was so excited!

She ate some of the carrots I had, but she really gobbled down some chunks of spaghetti squash I had. She was gentle taking the food out of my hand. Her hair is very coarse when I petted her.

They had a very sad event happen a few days before we got there. The pigs got food poisoning from people who fed them spoiled food, and 7 of the 30 pigs died from it! We were told the vets were there giving them shots. I hope that doesn't happen any more! One of the volunteers who was on the island told us about this, and said they will be making some restrictions on people for the pigs protection. The pigs are also not getting enough exercise. They used to go in the water and swim to get their food but now that more people are going on the beach to them they don't swim as much as they should.

The shoreline of Big Majors was very interesting. There were a few cave like holes in the rock as well as several beaches.

One of these beaches was set up for a party. There was a picnic table, a grill, lawn chairs, an awning for shade. An umbrella over the table, a corn hole game, and an area that looked great for a campfire. It turns out that people have donated these things over the years for boaters to get together for sundowners and such. The sign for the place was Pirate's Island.

These 2 photos reminded me of Boo Boo Hill in Warwick Wells where you left your name plaque there.  People did similar things.  Some drew on the picnic table.  

We only stayed one night due to some bad weather coming in. They were calling for up to 50 knot winds so we decided to go to a marina on Cave Cay - so no snorkeling for us here with the pigs!

Next.....shelter at Cave Cay.