Traveling the Great Loop

Join us as we travel North America's rivers, waterways, and canals; visit U.S. and Canadian cities, historical landmarks, national parks and river towns. We may even take you to the Bahamas.

Big Major & Staniel Cay, Exuma, Bahamas

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March 9, 2024, Black Point to Big Major Cay: Today’s Run: 19 miles

Measuring approximately 2 square miles, Staniel Cay is one of the largest islands in Exuma.

A small airport on Staniel Cay, accepts flights from Fort Lauderdale and Nassau. Thousands of holiday-goers visit the Exuma Islands annually.

Staniel Cay Yacht Club has a popular bar and restaurant…
… and rental seaside cottages, plus a full service marina.
Certain docks are built for large-sized yachts, as shown in the above picture. They can be a little challenging for small boats. Notice how long the ladder is.
While cleaning their catch, fishermen drop fish guts into the water attracting nurse sharks.
Nurse sharks are usually calm and non aggressive. Tourists will sometimes stand in shallow water to stroke them. But they will bite if agitated.
Among challenges that residents face in the islands, is how to dispose of materials they no longer need.
There are 2 grocery stores on the island.
We didn’t stay at Staniel Cay, instead, we dropped anchor at Big Major Cay, about a mile away, and dinghied there.

BIG MAJOR

Big Major is a spacious and very busy bay with numerous mega yachts, tour-boats and cruisers, but at high tide, (above), water rushes through a narrow opening causing uncomfortable motion while at anchor.

Yep, this is a pig! Nothing exotic, just an ordinary pig.

Big Major, or Pig Beach as it has been nicknamed, is famous for its swimming pigs.

Above, the pig keeper delivers food from another island. When the pigs see the feed-boat approaching, they swim to it. That’s how they learned to swim, and now the swimming pigs have become a main attraction. The pigs will also cruise around anchored boats looking for handouts.

Why are they there? It is believed that during the 1700s, when farmers transported their cattle to the Nassau abattoir, boats that faltered, became stranded, or shipwrecked during stormy weather, unintentionally let cattle escape. But it also known that explorers such as Christopher Columbus, who visited Exuma twice, left farm animals on the islands so that upon their return, they would have meat for their ongoing voyages. In later years, after Staniel Cay was settled, and the odour from a small swine farm made the pigs unpopular, they were moved to uninhabited Big Major Cay.

The pigs attract hundreds of tourists, like this tender full of guests from a nearby mega yacht. Some people even swim with them.

The pigs bring so many people to the nearby island of Staniel, that a resort on Great Exuma that was transporting their guests over 100 miles to see the pigs, developed their own swimming pig attraction. Purchasing pigs from Nassau for $80. per animal, they released them on a nearby cay, then tempted them into the water with food. Ta’ da! Another swimming pig attraction but closer to home.

Before going to bed that night, we attempted to charge the batteries by running the generator. The genset ran well, except the batteries were not charging. Our lithium batteries were down to 32%, and it was a concern that by morning, they would not have enough charge to kick-start the engine. (Alternatively, a battery can be charged by running a diesel engine, but it takes hours to put a significant charge into a battery.) With no local assistance available, we had a real problem on our hands.

Mike is quite knowledgeable about onboard electronics and mechanics, but this had him baffled. I have little knowledge about such matters, but while he was trying everything he could think of to solve the problem, I went online to the Facebook Sabre and Back Cove Yacht Tech group and discovered a video that showed that a switch/fuse, located at the back of the generator, can accidently get tripped. If it trips, the generator will continue running, but it will not produce electricity to energize the starter.

Yep, a flip of the switch solved the problem. I earned some brownie points for discovering that piece of information!

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117gbl

2 responses to “Big Major & Staniel Cay, Exuma, Bahamas”

  1. phlbrwn avatar
    phlbrwn

    Where’s the pig? Was it submarine?

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  2. phlbrwn avatar
    phlbrwn

    Where’s the pig? Was it submarine?

    Like

    Reply

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