Our garbage on our boat is starting to overwhelm us.  We haven’t found a place to dispose of it since we left Marsh Harbour 9 days ago.  Also we are out of bread and milk, so we decided to stop at Staniel Cay Yacht Club overnight.  We had to stay at the yacht club as that was the only way to get rid of the garbage.  The yacht club was expensive for what we got, and the anchorage was very rolly.   They wanted to charge us $2.50 per bag for the first 2 small bags of trash and then $25.00 for every bag after that, and this was if you were at the marina.  If you didn’t stay at the marina you couldn’t  dump garbage.  We had 3 BIG trash bags, each containing 2 smaller bags so there was no way we were going to pay that.  In the dock across from us is the mega yacht Blackhawk owned by the owners of the Blackhawk hockey team in Chicago.  They are all very friendly. It seems they have all their extended family on the boat for a big cruise. 

Once we were docked we ate a good lunch inside the Yacht Club we went exploring. The town is not that big, and it was incredibly hot, but we had our trusty map.  The map of course got us lost as it had us looking for roads that didn’t exist.  There was a lot of construction happening on the island so maybe the person who drew the map  was being optimistic.  A local,  walking on the road, not sweating near as much as we were, gave us the correct directions to both stores.    With hopes high we entered the nearest place, enthusiastically called a Super Market.  From the outside the “Super Market” looked smaller than my garage back home.  Inside it wasn’t any better.  It was dark and it was hot. It was over 90 degrees outside, and inside the store with no breeze, I am sure it was a hundred degrees!   As she watched us enter, one of the ladies shouted to the one in the store to “Turn on the refrigerator”.  That was not a good sign.  I looked around for bread but couldn’t find any.  When I asked for it, she showed me this old hard loaf that someone had made.  I decided to pass.  The diet coke cans were actually hot, not warm, but hot like they had been out in the sun all day.  There was no fresh food, just some overpriced dishwashing soap, a few canned goods and strangely, EVIAN water.  Dan looks at me and says “Who drinks Evian water any more?  These must have been here since the eighties!”  There is nothing I can buy but Dan says we have to buy something since they made a point of “opening” for us.  I don’t know what to buy.  I don’t dare look in the newly started up refrigerator.  Finally I settle on a can of pineapple juice, grossly overpriced at $6.00, and 2 small bags of chocolate chip cookies.  We leave the oven posing as a grocery store and head back to the boat.

As we pulled our dinghy up on the beach, the tender from Milk and Honey was there with a man and a woman sitting inside.  A few feet from the beach our kids finally saw what we came to see, pigs on the beach.  A large pink pig came out to greet our dinghy as we pulled up on shore.  In fact she tried to crawl into the dinghy!   After shooing her away we were able to get out of the dinghy.  Another brown pig was sitting by himself in the water, looking a little spaced out.   The kids at first were surprised and a little scared of the pigs at first, but soon they were feeding the pink pig cookies and running with her on the beach.  The brown one came up but the pink one was more aggressive with the food so she kept him away.  The pink pig eventually left, leaving the brown pig to get all the attention.  We had two pieces of meat left over in the dinghy and I gave him one and then left to talk to the people from Milk and Honey, who were looking at a shark not very far from our dinghy.    The guy said they had been on the beach awhile and had given the brown pig four beers.  I am not sure why you would do that, but ok.  I started to ask him questions about his mega yacht when I hear Dan, a few feet away, desperately calling my name.  I turn to look and the brown pig is almost entirely in our dinghy.  His entire front body and legs are in and he is trying to get his back legs in.  Dan is inside the dinghy trying to push him out.  I have no idea what to do.  These are wild pigs.  The pig is looking for more food and he is rooting around in our dinghy like a crazed animal.  I rush over and try to grab the back of his body while Dan tries to push him out.  I am so afraid that his hooves will puncture the side of the dinghy.  He does not go easily.  He slams his head into Dan’s hand forcing it back into the edge of the dinghy seat, opening a cut on the side of his hand.  His hand is now bleeding.  Noticing he is bleeding the mega yacht guy suggests rinsing it in the salt water.  Weren’t you just watching a shark in the water by our dinghy???  Finally the pig reluctantly gets out of the dingy but he is very aggressive.  I am now between him and the dinghy, holding my camera in my right hand. He thinks it is food and chomps down on my arm.  HARD!  Thank God he didn’t break the skin, but he bit hard enough so that a HUGE lump (about an inch and a half high) instantly forms on the outside of my forearm and inside of my forearm and scratch marks from his teeth.  I am very lucky he didn’t get my hand or my wrist as I am sure he would have broken something.

“He bit me!”

The woman says “He bit me too yesterday.  On the butt!” 

 I can’t believe she came back. My arm hurts and I am not happy.  I slap the pig hard on the nose.  Dan tells me not to do that.  I first I thought he said it because he thought I was being mean to the pig but then I realize he said it because I just hit a wild animal that has a very bad history of biting.  The pig nips me on the leg.  I am very upset with this pig.  I never get bit.  Animals love me.  Even if he mistook my camera for food, he has gone over the line.  We decide to get out of there.  Milk and Honey are leaving too. 

 “Get in the dinghy!!” we yell to the kids.  Of course the pig is coming too.  At this point it’s every man woman and child for themselves.  Dan is pushing the dinghy out, I dive inside, the kids are racing along side, and I am yelling “Get in! Get in!”.  I pull them to safety.  The guy from Milk and Honey yells  to me to put my arm in salt water.  I yell back that it’s not bleeding, it just has a big lump.  

 “Put it in saltwater anyway.  It will help.”  Apparently saltwater is his answer to everything.  Thank you doctor.  How about next time just not giving the pigs beer!

Dan’s hand is still bleeding, and my arm is looking worse, so we do a quick circle around Dancing Dolphin and not seeing them out, we head the mile and a half back to our boat. The swelling in my arm is going down some but now it is starting to hurt more.  When we get back to the boat, I ask Dan to get me some ice from the freezer.  Of course the ice is at the very bottom and you have to lift nearly everything out to find it.  He can’t find it and instead hands me a bag of COLD WATER, not ice, and says, (THIS IS UNFORTUNATELY A DIRECT QUOTE) “Here use this.  It’s colder than ice.”

I just stare at him a long time before I reply. 

 “If it’s colder than ice, wouldn’t it be ice???????” 

 So much for good medical help on the high seas!!!