Play with pigs
Bahamas ocean safari includes snorkelling and feeding iguanas
GREAT EXUMA, THE BAHAMAS — Pigs are said to be among the world’s cleanest animals. But few can hold a candle to the handful of hungry porkers pig-paddling among us today, squeaky clean from the crystalline, emerald waters.
We’re at the start of Exuma Water Sports’ ocean safari, where swimming with pigs has become a Bahamian phenomenon. Tourists like us, from visiting guide boats, encounter the friendly beasts in the warm, waist-deep water off a small island known as White Bay Cay.
The pigs, though, call it home. They’re only a few generations removed from those that some entrepreneur figured he or she could raise rent-free on the desolate cay. That scheme fizzled though, and the animals were left to fend for themselves.
Affable sixth-generation Bahamian Justin Lightbourn, whose family runs the small water sports company nearby, took notice. He understood how the pigs had become accustomed to humans approaching with food, and parlayed that into what is now a daily swimming-with-pigs excursion for tourists.
As we approach White Bay Cay in Lightbourn’s comfortable 11-metre, 700-horsepower tour boat, pigs slowly emerge from the cover of the island’s natural vegetation. Guides give us chicken wieners as an offering to the pigs.
Once the animals see us hop from the boat into the perfect water with those delicacies, they make like Mark Tewksbury. As we meet, they paddle and splash all around us like giddy dogs, snatching the wieners out of our hands.
Lightbourn joins the fray as the pigs return to shore, trudging from the powerboat to the island with pails of fresh water and pig feed. He makes sure their real nutritional needs are met; to him, these pigs bring home the bacon. He once had his sights set on a baseball career and even played minor league with current Blue Jay outfielder Michael Saunders. But at the ripe old age of 29, he’s become a full-time pig papa.
As we cast off after 20 minutes or so, he checks his phone and proudly announces the swimming pigs’ Instagram account (you read that right) has reached a whopping 175,000 followers. (The account has more recently amassed more than 225,000 followers).
This half-day safari also includes a stop for some challenging snorkelling, due to an unusually strong current.
Later, Lightbourn rewards us with a relaxing cold beer — one of many, in fact — at another stop, under a beach umbrella jammed into metre-deep water.
And finally, we visit Leaf Cay, a mostly deserted knoll actor Nicolas Cage had purchased in 2006. We kind of expect pigs.
Instead, crawling from under leaves and bushes and other cover, we see hordes of prehistoric-looking iguanas.
They emerge like the swimming pigs, but crowd the beach rather than swim to meet us. Onshore, we find them surprisingly social, and eager to scramble for the grapes Lightbourn gives us to feed them.
We stroke their backs, pose for photos with them . . . but that’s it. They’re happy taking our snacks and seeing us off. So are we. We dock back at Lightbourn’s launch at noon.
By 1 p.m., we’re at our home base, Sandals Emerald Bay, for a poolside lunch, delivered by bicycle by our butler Samson to our favourite place on the resort, the “Quiet Pool.” Whatever’s on today’s menu, please, hold the bacon. Owen Roberts was a guest of Sandals Emerald Bay, which didn’t review or approve this story.