Helicopter from Miami to Harbour Island

The island keeps no customs office. The desk that serves it sits at North Eleuthera across the water, an airport of entry with Bahamas immigration and customs on site. A first arrival in the country is stamped there whatever it arrived in. Nothing is attached to the mainland. There is no bridge and no road across, so the last leg of every arrival crosses open water: under four miles from the airport side to the Government Dock. Close enough to be a short hop, far enough to be arranged rather than assumed. That last leg is the part worth planning instead of improvising. Say where the party is actually staying when the date goes in and the arrival is put together backwards from that. The full entry picture sits in the travel documents guidance, and the north end of the mainland has its own page at North Eleuthera.

Pink Sands Beach runs roughly three miles down the Atlantic shore and is what almost everyone comes for. The colour is not a trick of the light: countless tiny shells have collected over centuries, and they turn deep red once wet. Stirred through white sand they push the whole shore pink, strongest along the line the water has just left. It moves through the day as the sun does. Seen from the air on the turn in, it reads as a single long stripe. Riding a horse along it is the thing guests add most often on top of simply being on it, and it is an old Bahamian habit rather than a resort invention. Say if anyone wants it when the date goes in, because it is arranged ashore and not by us. Other things we can put on the ground are on the custom experiences page.

The settlement is Dunmore Town and it ran the country for a while. Lord Dunmore laid it out in 1791 while he was governor, and for part of the late eighteenth century it was the capital of the Bahamas. Both the town and the street through it still carry his name. The architecture is what survived. Narrow lanes, pastel clapboard cottages that look imported from New England, flower beds tight against the walls and water at the end of most streets. St John's Anglican Church went up in 1768 and is the oldest in the country. It stands on Dunmore Street, and Wesley Methodist is a short walk from it. You can cross it on foot in an afternoon, which is what turns it into half a day rather than a stop. Bakeries, galleries and restaurants sit mixed in among the houses instead of gathered on one strip. If a table matters, say so with the date: the charter desk can hold it before you land.

Bay Street runs the length of the harbour with the water on one side and the town on the other. It is where the boats come in, where most of the shops and bars are, and where an afternoon ashore starts whether anybody planned it that way or not. The houses along it are clapboard with picket fences and deep porches, painted in colours that owe nothing to a design scheme, and a good number of them carry woodwork over a hundred and fifty years old. They are lived in, not preserved, which is the difference between this and a restored quarter. Straw work is made and sold in the town, alongside a short row of shops, all of it on foot from the Government Dock at the north end of the street. Everything keeps daytime hours and shuts earlier than a city does, so the return hour is worth fixing with that in mind. Because the helicopter is held for your party alone, that hour bends around the afternoon instead of the other way round.

Nobody drives a car here. Golf carts are the transport, hired at the dock and usually within a minute of stepping off the boat, and that single fact is most of why the island feels unlike the mainland inside the first five minutes. Scale is what makes it work. Three and a half miles end to end puts the beach, the town and the north point inside a short run of each other, so a party can take in the whole island in a day without ever planning a route. Walking works too and plenty of guests never hire anything at all. If anyone in the party cannot manage the lanes on foot, say so when the date goes in so the cart is standing ready rather than queued for. Arrangements at either end are on the ground transport page.

A single fallen tree lies on a flat bed of sand at the northern point, and after the beach itself it is the most photographed object on the island. No story is attached to it beyond being where it is, which is part of why it works. It sits at the far end of a cart run from town, so it tends to be the turning point of a half day rather than a destination on its own. The sand around it goes flat and wide at low water, and that is the hour worth being there for. The north point is also where the island looks back at the mainland, so this is the stretch that shows a party how close the two really are. More of the same coastline from the air is on the scenic flights page.

Diving is not what this island is famous for, which is why Briland's Blue Hole earns a mention: it draws a fraction of the attention it would get anywhere with less beach to compete against. The north shore carries something harder to miss from the air. The Devil's Backbone is a shallow ridge of coral and shifting sand along the top of Eleuthera, and the passage from Spanish Wells threads through it. Boats take it slowly and in good light. From a helicopter it is a pale seam in the water with wrecks along it. Reef close enough to swim to in places, deeper ground offshore, flats on the sheltered side. Say how many are getting in the water and whether anyone is diving rather than snorkelling, because a dive boat and a snorkel boat are not always the same boat. What we can carry is in the baggage guidance.

Two marinas work the island and Valentine's is the one named most often, with Romora Bay the other. Between them they hold boats up to around a hundred and sixty feet for most of the year, which is more yacht than the size of the island suggests. They are also the practical base for anyone running back and forth to the mainland during a stay, and that happens enough to keep both busier than a three mile island would explain. If a yacht is meeting the party, say so with the date. Whether a helicopter can come to the boat is a question about that boat, its deck and the permissions in place, and it is answered by the operator when you book rather than here. What we arrange either way is the flight and the yacht transfer around it.

Three names come up when a party stays on. Pink Sands Resort sits on the beach, which is the argument for it, The Dunmore is in town and Valentine's is the one if boats are part of the plan. A day trip holds up here in a way it does not further down the chain, because everything is close. Staying over changes the baggage and the hour you leave Florida, not the flight. The other direction is to keep going. The mainland is minutes away across the water and the rest of the chain is a short flight, which turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Freight and supply runs are on the island logistics page, the packaged version is the Harbour Island getaway day trip, the full island guide is on the Harbour Island destination page and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.