Sinbad the cat needed a miracle to save him when he tumbled from his owner’s boat and was swept away by the swift current of Florida’s Okeechobee Waterway. And a miracle is what he got when he was carried to shore - in the gentle jaws of a barnyard pig!
The seagoing Kitty went overboard when he made a headlong leap at a gull roosting on the rail of global sailor Ian Smith’s 40-foot sloop Freebooter as it moved through the waterway just east of Alva.
“When I saw Sinbad smack the water I thought that was the end of him,” the 47-year-old New Zealander said.
“I was heading west and the current was moving east. There was no way I could have managed to get back to him in time to save him, now matter what I did.
“I kept watching to see if he could swim to shore. He tried like hell, but the current was too strong and he was too far from the bank. I knew he was going to drown.”
But as Ian turned away he caught sight of someone - or something - bravely swimming out to the stricken Sinbad.
“At first I thought it was a child,” Ian recalled. “But when I got my binoculars on it, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It wasn’t a child swimming out to Sinbad, it was a porker … a pig!
“It was absolutely amazing I had always heard that pigs are really smart, but I never believed an animal had the ability to reason.
“The pig was swimming with the current on an angle that took it right up to Sinbad. Then it took Sinbad in its mouth and instead of fighting the current, he swam with the current, but on an angle that carried them to shore. This pig has more brains than most people I know.
“The pig carried Sinbad out of the water, up the bank and plopped him down on the grass. I headed the boat to shore. I headed the boat to short and dropped anchor. By the time I reached Sinbad, he was cuddled up to the pig and purring loud enough to wake the dead.
“I headed back toward the boat, thinking Sinbad would follow me. But he didn’t budge. When I tried to pick him up, he hissed at me. He didn’t want to leave that pig
“Well, I realized that if I wanted to keep my little sailing buddy there was only one thing buddy there was only one thing I could do. I found the pig’s owner and bought him. I named the pig Porky … what else? Now those two animals are inseparable.
“It gets a bit crowded at times, but I guess if Noah could manage with two of everything on his ark, I can live with a cat and a pig on a sailboat.”
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