Helicopter from Miami to Arthur's Town

Arthur's Town sits around two hundred and fifty five nautical miles out from the city, just under three hundred miles of open water. A helicopter is not the fastest way to cover that, and that is rarely what decides it.

What decides it is what the hour looks like: low over the water, unhurried, in a cabin that carries your party and nobody else. There is also a clearance stop on the way in, and that is part of the plan we file rather than an extra errand for you.

Miami's heliport sits about two miles from Downtown and four from Miami Beach, which for most parties is a short drive rather than a journey. Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach are also possible and have their own pages. Tell us where your party is actually staying and the departure point is picked around that rather than the other way round.

That is settled with the operator when you book rather than promised on a web page. What a helicopter can do and what it is permitted to do at a given spot are two different questions, and the second one depends on the day and on the permissions in place at the time.

What we hold is the flight, the clearance stop and the arrangements around both, and all of it comes back to you before anything is confirmed.

Yes. The Bahamas receives arrivals from abroad at its own designated points, and the clearance stop is planned into the route before you leave Florida. New Bight, about twenty two nautical miles down the same island, or Nassau are examples of where that can happen.

Which point your flight uses depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date, and it comes back with the quote. The crew handles it while your party sits still.

Yes, within daylight and within what the crew is allowed to fly. That is the main thing a charter buys you on a crossing this long. The hour is set when you confirm and can still be moved afterwards if your day changes, because the aircraft is not going anywhere else and there are no other passengers to inconvenience.

No. A charter carries the people you name and nobody else. There is no seat assignment, no other party sharing the cabin, and no risk of the flight leaving without part of your group.

The passenger list can also change up to shortly before the flight: a name added or dropped is a refiling on our side rather than a rebooking on yours.

Yes, for every passenger including children. The Bahamas is a different country and a helicopter does not change that. We take the passport details once at the enquiry and file for both sides before departure. The travel documents page lists what each passenger hands over and by when.

About thirty minutes. There is no terminal to cross and no queue to join at either end. You arrive, you walk out, and the outbound filing is already done from our side before you get there, so there is nothing to hand in and nothing to print.

The colour of the water, the whole way, and it changes more than once on a crossing this long. The green of the shelf, the deep blue of the stream, the pale central banks, then the long low line of Cat Island coming up ahead. From altitude that is one flat colour.

This is the part parties describe afterwards, and for some of them it is the reason the flight was booked at all. The last stretch is the one people ask about, because the island arrives slowly and stays in the window for a long time before there is anything on it.

It works, and it is a full day rather than a half one. The water is long, there is a clearance stop on the way in, and the return hour stays movable while you are still on the island.

Parties who want the afternoon to be unhurried usually stay a night, and both shapes are priced the same way. If the day is meant to include Peter's Cave and a long lunch, a night makes the road and the flight two separate questions rather than one compromise.

Very little, which is the point. Arthur's Town is the quiet top of Cat Island, a settlement of about a hundred and fifty people where Sidney Poitier grew up. Peter's Cave, a set of limestone caverns with bats in them, lies in the north of the island, and Rake 'n' Scrape fills the settlement every year in early June.

Everything else is down the Queen's Highway: the island runs about forty eight miles, New Bight is about twenty two nautical miles south, and Mount Alvernia, the highest point in the Bahamas at sixty three metres, is further down still.

There is very little to hire at this end, so anything on wheels is worth arranging before you arrive rather than after. A car or a cart held for your party covers the road, and the visit can be built around Peter's Cave and the village, or around nothing at all if the beach is the point.

The day moves. Weather is the one thing a charter does not make flexible, and we would rather move a flight than fly it badly.

You are told as early as we know, and the aircraft is rebooked to a date that works for your party. Because it was held for you and nobody else, moving it is a conversation rather than a queue for the next available seat.

It depends on the aircraft and on what the party is carrying, which is why the answer comes with the quote rather than before it.

Send the headcount and the bags at the enquiry and you get back what is free on your date, what each one takes and what each one costs. You are pricing the airframe rather than a headcount, so the cost per person falls as the group grows.

Send the date, the number of guests, where you are leaving from and the hour you would like. You get back what is free, what it costs, the boarding time and what is included, and nothing is held until you say so.

If the day has anything else in it, a cart waiting or a guide booked around the tide, say so at the same time and it comes back priced alongside the aircraft. A rough date is enough to start with: an hour that already exists is easier to move than one found from nothing a week out.

Yes, pets travel in the cabin with you. The one thing we ask is that you tell us at the enquiry, with the type of animal and its weight, so the seating and the load plan are right from the start.