Helicopter from Miami to Bimini

Most parties come for the water first. The reef sits close enough to the beach to swim to in places and drops into deep water a short run offshore. That is why snorkelling is the single most common thing guests ask to build a day around, and why the island carries a diving reputation out of all proportion to its size. Visibility is what brings people back, more than the marine life alone. The boats leave from the marinas at the north end. Say how many are swimming when you send the date and say whether anyone is diving rather than snorkelling: a dive boat and a snorkel boat are not always the same boat. With the aircraft held for your party alone, half a day in the water and a long lunch ashore both fit inside the same visit.

Stingrays are the shallow water answer and the one that works with children along: they come in shin deep over pale sand, close enough to stand with. The nurse sharks gather in the same kind of water and are the calmer half of the island's shark reputation. Neither is tied to a particular month, so both hold up whatever date the party has already fixed. The great hammerheads are the exception and they are the reason the month comes up at all. The window on Bimini runs roughly November through April: that is when the boats go out for them, and it is the trip that fills first, because the boats are few and carry a dozen or so guests each. A party that comes for hammerheads in June has come at the wrong end of the year for them, so they are worth naming when you send the date rather than after it.

If the day is about fish rather than swimming, this is a serious address and has been since the 1930s, when Hemingway fished here and made the island's name. The drop off falls away a mile offshore into deep water and the flats behind the island hold bonefish, so parties book bonefishing and flats access or a full fishing day. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.

The sandbars are the other half of it. At low water the bank dries into open sand in the middle of the sea, with nothing on it and nothing around it. That is where a beach picnic goes and where the rays come in shin deep. Add water toys if the party wants the afternoon on the water rather than on the sand, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you at the marina. The bank that dries at low water sits on the same southward line as the wreck and the cays below the island, so a boat afternoon here runs as one loop rather than three separate errands. Low water decides the hour, not the one you would prefer: it is the single part of a Bimini day that is set by the sea rather than by the aircraft.

On land it is a short ride rather than a drive. The resort strip and the big marinas sit at the north end of the island, the older game fishing club and the bars of Alice Town along King's Highway, and the ocean-side beaches lie a few minutes apart. North and South Bimini are separate islands with a channel between them and the crossing is a small ferry that runs on demand rather than on a timetable. Golf carts are the transport on the north island and they are worth arranging with the flight rather than on arrival, particularly at a weekend. Ask for ground transport at the enquiry and it is waiting when the door opens. Guests who want a table rather than a boat book a fly and dine day, and anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.

The odder things are close too and they are what people photograph. The wreck of the Sapona, a concrete ship left where she grounded, stands out of the water south of South Bimini in about fifteen feet, shallow enough that the snorkellers and the divers are looking at the same thing from different depths. The Healing Hole is a spring back in the mangroves. The Bimini Road, a line of squared stone blocks in about three fathoms off the north west point, is the reason a certain kind of diver comes at all.

The border desk is at the southern end of the island group, on South Bimini, beside the only runway in Bimini: a single asphalt strip of around 5,430 feet, identifiers BIM and MYBS. Alice Town and the resort strip are on North Bimini, about two and a half miles away across a channel with no bridge. A water taxi crosses in around ten minutes, plus five to ten minutes by road from the strip to the dock. The south island is the quiet one, mostly residential, and a few things on it are worth the stop. The shark research station on the south shore is a working field station that has studied sharks in these waters since the 1990s, so a visit is booked with them and runs to their calendar. Port Royal, next to Bimini Sands, has holiday homes, a beach club, restaurants and a dive base. Bimini Sands has the marina, the villas and a nature trail of about a mile through the undeveloped middle of the island, home to the endangered Bimini boa, a snake found nowhere else that grows to around eight feet. Beside the airport road stands the limestone well known as the Fountain of Youth, a ten minute stop. Say in your first message if the south side is the point of the day, and the answer comes back with the crossing already worked into the hours.

Cat Cay lies a few minutes further south by air and about ten miles by water. Honeymoon Harbour, on the way, is the beach the rays are photographed at and it sits on the same line south as the wreck and the sandbars. Cat Cay itself is a private club. The marina and the houses there are for members and their sponsored guests, so for everyone else it is a stop seen from the water rather than a place to book into. Worth knowing before an afternoon gets planned around it.

Helicopter rides Miami Bimini also work as the first leg. The same aircraft carries on to Grand Bahama, Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. A weekend changes the baggage, not the route. A date that has to look like something is where the catering on board and the extras come in, and the baggage guidance sets out what goes in the back. If a yacht is meeting you, that is a yacht transfer, arranged with the flight. Anything larger than luggage is island logistics. The full island guide is on the Bimini destination page, the packaged version is the Bimini getaway day trip and the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.