Swimming Pigs of Exuma: The Island, the Reality, and the Experience

Nobody agrees on how they got there. Some say a ship wrecked nearby and the pigs swam ashore. Others say sailors left them on Big Major Cay with plans to come back for dinner and never returned. A third version involves a nearby resort chef who decided the island made a better pig habitat than a kitchen. The origin is genuinely unknown, and the pigs are now old enough institutionally that it barely matters: they wade and swim into the shallows to meet arriving boats, and tourists travel thousands of miles to be there when it happens.

Big Major Cay, also called Pig Beach, is a small uninhabited island in the Exuma chain about 60km north of Georgetown. There are roughly 20 pigs on the island at any given time, though numbers fluctuate. The experience is cheerful, slightly chaotic, and genuinely unusual. Arrive by boat, a pig swims toward you hoping for food, you have a photograph that confuses people for years.

Getting There

Fly into Exuma International Airport (GGT) from Nassau on Bahamasair or Southern Air (30-40 minutes), or directly from Miami, Atlanta, or Toronto if seasonal direct flights are operating. Georgetown on Great Exuma is the main town.

For Big Major Cay specifically: renting a powerboat in Georgetown costs around $250-400 per day with fuel extra. Day tours from Georgetown or Staniel Cay run $150-200 per person and typically bundle several stops together: the pigs, Thunderball Grotto (snorkelling in the cave used in two Bond films, 1965’s Thunderball and 1983’s Never Say Never Again), and Compass Cay for nurse shark feeding. Staniel Cay, the nearest inhabited island to Pig Beach, has a small airstrip with charter flights from Nassau if you want to base yourself close to the action.

Managing Expectations

The pigs are well-fed and assertive. A 60-kilogram pig swimming directly at your legs with food on your mind and theirs is not a gentle encounter. Keep food bags well above waist level. The pigs have bitten hands before, not aggressively, but because they’re fast and hungry and you’re slow. The guides who run tours here are worth listening to.

Peak season brings heavy boat traffic from December through April. If you’re going during that window, a weekday morning before the organised day tours arrive gives a significantly better ratio of pigs to humans. May and November are the sweet spots: weather is good, crowds are thin, and the pigs are no less photogenic.

The Exumas Generally

The chain runs 365 islands over 150km, most uninhabited. The water is exceptional: pale turquoise over sand shading into deep navy in the tidal channels between cays. Snorkelling the cut channels, where currents run and marine life concentrates, is legitimately some of the best snorkelling in the Atlantic. Don’t spend the whole trip chasing pigs.

Exuma Land and Sea Park, the no-take marine reserve in the northern cays, has reef in a state that the southern tourist areas simply don’t match. It’s accessible only by private or chartered boat; no commercial tours run inside the reserve. If you’re renting a boat for multiple days, this is worth the navigation.

Where to Stay and Eat

Grand Isle Resort in Georgetown is the luxury option with pool villas from around $450/night. Several guesthouses along Queens Highway in Georgetown run $100-180/night and give you easy access to Georgetown’s facilities. Staniel Cay Yacht Club has cottages from around $350/night and the best possible position for reaching Pig Beach by dinghy in under 10 minutes.

For food, Chat ‘N’ Chill on Stocking Island, reached by water taxi from Georgetown for $10 return, makes conch salad fresh to order at picnic tables on a sand spit facing the harbour. The conch goes straight from shell to bowl. It’s a $15 lunch that beats any restaurant in the main town.