Helicopter from Miami to Great Harbour Cay

Most parties come for the beach first. The Atlantic side of the island is sand almost end to end, broken by low headlands into a run of horseshoe bays, and on a normal weekday you will have one of them to yourselves. That is the difference between this island and the ones with a cruise dock. Nothing here is queued for, because there is nobody to queue behind: a few hundred people live on the whole cay. Say how many are swimming when you send the date and say whether you want shade and a table rather than an empty bay. A beach picnic is set up on the sand rather than bought there, because there is no counter to buy it at.

The harbour is a basin cut inland and almost closed to the sea, which makes it one of the best protected anchorages in the Bahamas and the reason boats sit out weather here that they would not sit out elsewhere. Bullocks Harbour, the settlement beside it, is where everybody on the island lives and where the one shop, the bar and the dock are. It is known locally as The Village and a bridge separates it from the cay itself. For a party joining a boat this is the whole point of the route. A yacht transfer or a dock pickup is arranged with the flight, because on an island this size a boat that is not expecting you is a boat that is not there.

The chain sits on the rim of the Great Bahama Bank with the Tongue of the Ocean opening beside it, so shallow water and very deep water lie minutes apart. That edge is why the Berry Islands have the reputation they do and why boats come up from Nassau to fish them. Offshore it is billfish, tuna, wahoo and kingfish along the drop. Behind the island the flats hold bonefish, which is a different day and a different boat. Both are booked from the harbour, which is what a fishing day by air and bonefishing and flats access are built around. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day, and the baggage guidance sets out how that is worked out.

On the bank side the water is shin deep for a long way out and at low tide it dries into open sand in the middle of the sea, with nothing on it and nothing around it. Between the cays the shallows run to ten or fifteen acres of white sand at the narrowest crossings. From a helicopter that is the part of the day people photograph before they have arrived, and it is the single reason the crossing is flown low rather than high. It is also where water toys make more sense than a boat, and where a picnic goes if the party wants the afternoon off the island. Both travel with the aircraft, so they are added when you send the date rather than on the day.

Sugar Beach lies on the ocean side towards the southern end of the island and the low cliffs behind it are undercut into caves that you can walk into at the right stage of the tide. It is also the one piece of the island with a story on it. The beach carries the name of a hotel that entertained cruise passengers here in the late 1970s, from the years when this island was being built into a resort and then was not. It is far enough from the harbour to want a cart and near enough that half an afternoon covers it, so ground transport is worth asking for at the enquiry. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.

The southern tip of the island narrows into Shark Creek, a tidal cut that empties and fills with the tide and has been known for its sharks long enough to be named after them. It is shallow, clear and busier with fish than anywhere else on the island, and a large hammerhead was tagged in these waters in 2002. Guests who want the water rather than the beach usually end up here or on the reef, and both are a boat ride rather than a walk, so they are worth naming when you send the date. A table at the end of it is a fly and dine day.

The reef work here happens from a boat out of the harbour rather than off the beach, because the shallow bank on the settlement side runs a long way before it drops. What that buys is visibility and space. The dive and snorkel spots along this part of the chain are not shared with a schedule of tour boats, because no schedule of tour boats comes here. Say whether anyone is diving rather than snorkelling when you send the date. A dive boat and a snorkel boat are not always the same boat, and on an island this size that is a question of who is on it that week.

The Berries run roughly thirty miles, some thirty larger cays and a hundred smaller ones, most uninhabited and several privately owned. Great Harbour Cay is the top of that line and Chub Cay the bottom, twenty nautical miles south. Helicopter rides Miami Great Harbour Cay work as the first leg. The same aircraft carries on to Chub Cay, Nassau, Andros, Grand Bahama or Harbour Island. That 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. Anything larger than luggage is island logistics. The full island guide is on the Great Harbour Cay destination page, the packaged version is the Berry Islands getaway and the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.