Helicopter from Miami to Grand Bahama

The island is limestone the whole way down, so the water people come for is as much under it as around it. Lucayan National Park sits on the longest charted underwater cave system in the world, seven miles mapped so far, running out beneath the pine forest and the mangroves. Ben's Cave is the one most visitors see. Sixty feet of water, the top thirty fresh and the bottom thirty salt, with the two layers meeting in a line you can watch from above. Certified divers book it through the registered operators, everyone else walks the boardwalks over the five ecosystems the park was made for. Say whether anyone is diving rather than snorkelling when you send the date. Cave access runs on permits and operator schedules, so it is worth naming before the day is fixed rather than after.

Port Lucaya is where the in-water encounters run from. The dolphin programme starts with a twenty minute boat ride out to a protected lagoon, which is the part that decides the morning: it is a half day rather than an hour. The shark dive is a separate thing and it is for certified divers only. Both are booked ahead rather than walked into, and both sit in the middle of the island. Add water toys if the afternoon is meant to stay on the water, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you at the marina.

The south side of the island drops into the Gulf Stream, the same water you crossed on the way over. Blue and white marlin, yellowfin and blackfin tuna and sailfish all run through it, and the deep water reputation here is older than the resorts. That is a full day on a boat rather than an afternoon, so it sets the return leg rather than fitting around it. The boats leave from the marinas at Lucaya, so say at the enquiry that the day is about deep water: it moves where you want to be put down rather than what you do once you are there. Rods and gear travel within the payload for the aircraft on the day. A helicopter is not a cargo hold, so tell us what is coming with the party before the date is fixed rather than at the pad.

The north side is the opposite water. Shallow flats run for miles behind the island and they hold bonefish, which is the quiet half of the fishing here and the half that suits a shorter day. Parties book bonefishing and flats access for exactly that reason: it starts where the water is, not where the terminal is. Say how many are fishing when you send the date, because guides and skiffs are counted per head rather than per party. The flats and the deep water are opposite sides of the same island, so a party that wants both is really asking for two days rather than one long one. Tides move the useful hours through the month, and on a charter the departure time moves with them.

West End is the oldest settlement on Grand Bahama and its westernmost point, about ten miles closer to Florida than Freeport is. Its recorded history runs back to the early 1500s and through a long stretch of smugglers, wreckers and rum runners after that. Today it is the quiet end: a marina, a resort and very little road noise. It is also the longest drive on the island from the middle, which is why it comes up in almost every enquiry that starts with the words away from the crowds. Parties meeting a boat at the western marinas go straight alongside on a yacht transfer rather than driving out to them. If the day ends there, say so at the enquiry and the ground transport is arranged around that end rather than the other.

The beach lies about twenty six miles east of Lucaya inside the national park and it is reached on a ten minute walk through it. At low water the sand runs out flat and shallow for a long way, which is the whole picture people come for. Low water is what decides the hour, not the one you would prefer. It is the single part of a Grand Bahama day that is set by the sea rather than by the aircraft, and it is the far end of the island from the middle, so a beach picnic here is either an hour of road or no road at all.

Paradise Cove sits west of Freeport and it is the reef you can swim to. Deadman's Reef lies straight off the beach in shallow water, close enough that the snorkellers and the paddlers are looking at the same thing. Peterson Cay is the other one, about a mile offshore on the south side. It is the smallest national park in the country at an acre and a half, with a quarter mile of protected water around it, reached by boat rather than on foot. Both are shallow enough that a party with children in it is looking at the same reef as the divers. Add water toys if the afternoon stays on the water, or a beach picnic if it comes ashore.

Helicopter rides Miami Grand Bahama also work as the first leg rather than the whole day. Grand Bahama is the top of the archipelago and the same aircraft carries on south and east to Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route, and freight follows separately on island logistics. The full island guide sits on the Grand Bahama destination page, the packaged version is the Grand Bahama getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.