Helicopter from Miami to Bahamas

Every arrival from abroad is seen by Bahamian immigration and customs before the day can start. That is the one fixed point in an otherwise open plan, and it is ours to arrange rather than yours. Which port of entry suits your island comes back with the quote. It is not something your party works out from a list, and it is not a fixed airfield we name on a web page: it depends on the island, the day and the permissions in place at the time. What that buys is the rest of the afternoon. On a short crossing the formalities are the only queue in the day, and everything after them is the part you came for.

New Providence is the busiest island in the country and the one most first trips name. Nassau lies a good hundred and sixty nautical miles from Miami, close enough to leave after breakfast and be back the same evening. Paradise Island and Atlantis sit across the bridge from the town, and the beaches on the north shore, Cable and Cabbage and Junkanoo, are a short ride from almost anywhere on the island. Fort Fincastle and the Queen's Staircase are the half hour most parties give the old town. Rose Island and Blue Lagoon are the quiet version, reached by boat from the harbour in under an hour. Say which of the two shapes you want when you send the date and the ground transport is arranged around it.

The Abacos run for around a hundred and twenty miles of cays off the northern end of the chain, and they are the sailing half of the country. Treasure Cay is a hundred and sixty two nautical miles from Miami, Marsh Harbour a little over two hundred. Treasure Cay Beach is the one people come for, three miles of it, and Hope Town on Elbow Cay is the village with the striped lighthouse and no cars in it. Green Turtle Cay is where the turtles are, and Manjack is the undeveloped one north of it. A golf cart is the transport on every one of these cays, which is why it is the add-on most often asked for on this run.

Eleuthera is a hundred miles long and rarely more than a mile or two wide, around two hundred and fifty miles from Miami. Which end you want decides the day more than the island does. Harbour Island sits off the northern tip and has the pink sand: three miles of it, the colour coming from the crushed shell in the sand rather than from anything added. Dunmore Town behind it is golf carts and clapboard houses, and it is the single most photographed settlement in the country. The southern half is quieter, with the Glass Window Bridge where the deep Atlantic and the pale bank meet a few metres apart, and Governor's Harbour in between. Name the end when you send the date.

The Exumas are three hundred and sixty five cays running south from the Berry Islands, and they hold almost everything this country is known for. Staniel Cay is around two hundred and fifty miles from Miami and is the gateway to the rest of it. The swimming pigs are on Big Major Cay, ten minutes by boat from Staniel, and they are the single most asked for thing in the Bahamas. Thunderball Grotto is the cave at the same address, swimmable at low water. Compass Cay a short run north is where the nurse sharks gather at the marina jetty, and the rock iguanas are on Bitter Guana. Further south, George Town on Great Exuma is two hundred and seventy six nautical miles out, and Stocking Island lies across the harbour from it. At that distance most parties stay the night.

Bimini is the closest Bahamian island to Florida, around fifty nautical miles east of the city, and Chub Cay in the Berry Islands a hundred and thirty three. Both are comfortable as a morning out and an evening back. Bimini is seven miles of sand with one road down the middle. The reef sits close enough to swim to in places, the drop off falls into deep water a mile offshore, and the flats behind the island hold bonefish: it is a fishing address that has been one since the 1930s. The Berry Islands are the emptier version, a string of cays with more marinas than settlements. Both work as a first leg if the plan is island hopping rather than one destination.

Grand Bahama is the northern island, fifty five miles east of Florida at its closest, and Freeport is the town on it. Lucayan National Park has the largest charted underwater cave system in the world, seven miles of it, and the beaches inside the park are reached on a ten minute walk. South of the Exumas the chain keeps going and the islands get quieter with every hour. Long Island is the bonefishing one, Cat Island has eight miles of pink sand at Greenwood and almost nobody on it, and San Salvador is far enough out that the diving is the reason to go. These are the runs where the aircraft not needing an airfield matters most, because scheduled service to them is thin or absent. See the Bahamas destination pages for what each one holds.

Because the aircraft is held for your party and nothing else, the day does not have to end where it started. Two islands in one day is a normal request rather than an ambitious one, and it is priced as one charter. The common shapes are Nassau in the morning and a cay in the afternoon, or Staniel Cay for the pigs and the grotto and then somewhere quiet for lunch. The second leg is a decision you can still make while you are standing on the first island. Tell us what the day is supposed to look like when you send the dates. What comes back is the whole shape of it, aircraft and hours and everything arranged on the ground, before anything is confirmed.