Helicopter from Miami to Cat Cay

North Cat Cay is owned by the people who belong to it and run as a private club, and that single fact shapes every visit. The marina, the houses and the golf course are for members and the guests they sponsor rather than for anybody who turns up.

It is worth settling before a date is fixed rather than after. If you are a member or you are coming at a member's invitation, the arrival is arranged with the island. If not, the day is built around the water beside the cays, which belongs to nobody and is the better half of it anyway.

South Cat Cay lies below the main island and is the quieter half of the pair. Between the two of them and Gun Cay above, this is a short chain rather than a single island, and a day here is usually spent moving along it rather than sitting on one beach.

Honeymoon Harbour is the shallow bight at the north end of Gun Cay, minutes from the cays by boat, and it is where the southern stingrays come in. They arrive in water you can stand up in and they are used to people, which makes this the one stop that works with children along.

Nothing about it needs booking a month out, but it does need the tide and the hour. Add water toys if the party wants the afternoon on the water, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you.

Gun Cay sits immediately north of the Cat Cays and carries a lighthouse established in 1836. It is the landmark on this stretch of the bank, and from a helicopter it is the turn: once it has passed underneath, the cays are below you.

The light is also why Cat Cay has the history it has. Queen Victoria granted the original deed to the island in 1873 to a captain who had kept that lighthouse, which is a small thing to know and a good one to say out loud while you are flying over it.

There is a second light on the cays themselves. The breakwater lighthouse on North Cat Cay went up in 1933 and still works, which makes two working lights inside a few miles of water. From the air they are what fixes the chain in place when everything else below you is the same colour.

West of the cays the bottom falls off the bank into the Gulf Stream within sight of the beach, which is why this has been a fishing address for the better part of a century. Mahi-mahi, wahoo, marlin, snapper and grouper are all taken in the water around here.

That is why parties book a full fishing day or bonefishing and flats access on the bank behind the islands. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day, and they are declared when you book.

The edge itself is the thing worth seeing even if nobody in the party fishes. From low altitude the line where the pale bank stops and the deep water starts is drawn as sharply as a coastline, and it runs the length of the cays. It is the single view this crossing is booked for.

East of the cays the bank runs shallow for miles, and at low water parts of it dry into open sand in the middle of the sea, with nothing on it and nothing around it. That is where a beach picnic goes.

Low water decides the hour, not the one you would prefer, and it is the single part of a day out here that is set by the sea rather than by the aircraft. Say if the sandbar is the point of the day, because the tide table then picks the departure time.

It is also the half of the day nobody has to be invited to. The bank east of the cays is open water, the sand that dries out of it belongs to nobody, and a boat can be alongside for the hours you want it. Parties who cannot go ashore on the island itself usually end up spending the better afternoon out here.

Ashore the island is small enough that a golf cart is the transport and long enough to hold a marina on the lee side, a nine-hole course laid out in the 1930s for the Duke of Windsor and a breakwater lighthouse built in 1933 that still works.

The club has been through a good deal to still be there. Hurricane Betsy took most of it in 1965 and it was rebuilt and reorganised as a member-owned club afterwards. A golf cart waiting and a meet and greet are both arranged with the flight where the arrival is into the club.

Whether any of that is open to your party depends on the invitation rather than on the aircraft, and it is the first thing to settle when you send the dates. Where it is not, the water and the sandbars are the day, and they ask nobody for permission.

Ten miles north is Bimini, which is public, carries the marinas, the beach clubs and the bars, and is a port of entry in its own right. For most parties the honest shape of the day is both: the quiet water down here and the island up there.

The crossing that serves it is Miami to Bimini by helicopter and the packaged version is the Bimini getaway day trip. A second set-down changes the timing rather than the aircraft, so it is worth naming when you send the date.

Helicopter rides Miami Cat Cay also work as the first leg rather than the whole day. The same aircraft carries on east and south to Grand Bahama, Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas.

That is what turns one stop into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. A weekend changes the baggage rather than the route, and what goes in the back is weighed with the party rather than counted against a rule. The baggage guidance sets out how that works.

If a yacht is meeting you, that is a yacht transfer, and out here, where the marina is not open to everyone, it is the reason a good number of these flights happen at all.

Anything larger than luggage is a different service altogether, and that is island logistics. The full island guide sits on the Cat Cay destination page, the packaged version is the Cat Cay getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.