Helicopter from Miami to Blue Lagoon Island

The animals are why parties name this island rather than any other beach near Nassau. Bottlenose dolphins and sea lions live on Salt Cay under a programme that has run there since the early nineties, in seawater pens cut into the lagoon rather than in a tank.

This is the part of the day that fixes the hour rather than the date. The sessions run to their own clock and a party that lands late has simply missed them. Say how many are getting in the water and how old the youngest is when you send the date, and the flight is built around the slot.

Everything else on the island keeps whatever hours you keep, which is why the animals go first in this list and the sand goes second. Send the hour you would like along with the date and the departure is planned backwards from it.

The blue lagoon is a real thing rather than a brochure word. It is a sheltered basin of clear water behind the beaches, the old salt marsh that gave the island its proper name, and it stays flat on days when the open water outside does not.

Around it run white sand beaches under coconut palms, a mile or so of paths through the vegetation and enough shade that a whole day works rather than two hours. The scrub behind the paths is a nesting habitat for birds, so the quiet end of the island stays quiet.

Parties who want the sand to themselves usually add a beach picnic and let the aircraft wait. The ferries arrive and leave in blocks while a chartered helicopter sits through both of them. The good hours here are the ones between the crowds rather than the ones before them.

The reef sits close enough that the snorkelling starts from the beach rather than from a boat, over coral with tropical fish on it. That is unusual this close to a capital, and it is the second thing parties ask about after the animals.

Because nobody has to board anything, it fits whatever gap the rest of the day leaves: an hour before lunch, an hour after it, or the whole afternoon. Masks and fins are on the island, so nothing about it touches your payload.

If the party would rather be over the reef than in it, a scenic flight on the way in or out shows the same water from the other side, and from a helicopter that is the side with the better view.

Southern stingrays come into the shallows off the island in water shallow enough to stand in. It is the encounter that works with children along, because nobody has to swim and nobody has to go out of their depth.

Rays are not tied to a particular month here, so this one holds up whatever date the party has already fixed, which is not true of every wildlife day in the Bahamas.

Name it in the enquiry anyway, for the same reason as the dolphins: it sits at a fixed hour and the boarding time is built backwards from it. Say how many are getting in and whether anyone would rather watch from the sand.

An inflatable water park floats in the lagoon, and it is the reason teenagers stop asking when the boat leaves. Around it are kayaks, clear bottom kayaks, paddleboards, water bikes and underwater scooters, all kept on the island rather than carried in.

None of it comes out of your payload, so the party travels light and still spends the afternoon on the water. What is worth bringing sits in the baggage guidance. Parties who want their own kit rather than the island's add water toys to the day, and a boat meeting you somewhere else on the water is a dock pickup.

The island lies three miles east of Paradise Island, so the resort strip, the marina and the sand at Cabbage Beach are a short crossing rather than a second travel day. That is what parties do with the back half of an afternoon: a table, a spa hour or a run at Atlantis and back before the light goes.

It works in that order rather than the reverse, because the island is quiet in the morning and the town is not, and because the clearance has already happened on the way in. The packaged version is the Paradise Island getaway, and a party that wants the resort as the main event flies straight to Atlantis instead.

East of Salt Cay the water carries on into Rose Island, a thin strip of beaches and shallow sand with almost nothing built on it. At low water the bank dries into open sand in the middle of the sea.

That is where a day goes when the party has already had the animals and wants the empty version of the same water. It is also where island hopping starts: the same aircraft carries on east and south, and a party that clears in the morning can be somewhere else entirely by mid afternoon. The island has its own helicopter route from Miami.

Nassau is the other direction, and it is the one most people underestimate on a day trip. The old town, the fort above the harbour and the staircase cut into the rock behind it are a morning of their own, and the beaches west of town are a different kind of water from the island's.

Adding an hour or two in Nassau costs the day almost nothing from here. Parties who want it as the main event book the Nassau explorer day instead. The full island guide sits on the Blue Lagoon Island destination page, the packaged version is the Blue Lagoon Island getaway and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.