Helicopter from Miami to Marsh Harbour

The harbour is the reason the town exists. It is the deepest and best sheltered water in the Abacos, so the charter fleets, the provisioning and the fuel are all here rather than spread down the chain. For a party arriving by air that matters in one practical way: whatever is meeting you, a boat, a captain, a load of groceries for a week on a cay, it is already in this harbour rather than somewhere you have to reach first. A meet and greet and the ground transport between the two are arranged with the flight. It is also the one part of an Abaco day that is genuinely walkable. The restaurants and the marina bars sit around the water, so a long lunch and a boat afternoon do not need a car between them.

The cays people picture when they think of the Abacos lie across the Sea of Abaco from the town, about twenty minutes by ferry. That is why Marsh Harbour works as a base: the villages are an afternoon rather than a second flight. Elbow Cay carries Hope Town and its candy-striped lighthouse from the 1860s, and the village runs on golf carts, which is the helicopter to Hope Town angle in one line. Man-O-War Cay is the boatbuilding cay. Great Guana Cay is the long beach and the beach bar. Parties that want a cay without the ferry timetable keep the aircraft and fly the last hop, which is how a day turns into island hopping. The last ferry back is earlier than most visitors expect, so a day built around one of the cays is planned from the return leg backwards. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.

If the day is about fish rather than beaches, the Marls are why people come. They are the shallow mangrove flats along the west side of Great Abaco, ankle-deep water and mangrove cays for miles, and they hold bonefish. They also sit on the approach side from Florida, so a helicopter crosses them on the way in and you see the water you are about to fish before you are down on it. The flats are on the opposite side of the island from the harbour, so a fishing day starts early and runs on the tide rather than on the clock. Parties book bonefishing and flats access or a full fishing day by air. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day, which is worth saying when you send the date rather than after it.

The Sea of Abaco is the sheltered band of water between Great Abaco and the line of barrier cays, and it is the reason this island group is a sailing destination at all. The cays take the Atlantic swell, so the water inside them stays workable on days the ocean side is not. For a visitor that means the boat afternoon is reliable in a way it is not everywhere: short crossings, sheltered anchorages and a reef along the ocean side of the cays for the snorkelling. Add water toys if the party wants the afternoon on the water, or a beach picnic on one of the sandbars that dry at low water.

Marsh Harbour is a working town rather than a resort strip, and that is either the point or the drawback depending on the party. It has the grocery stores, the hardware, the banks and the doctors for the whole island group, so a week on a cay is provisioned here first. It also has the only traffic light in the Bahamian Out Islands, which locals will tell you before you have asked. Guests who want a table rather than a boat book a fly and dine day, and a golf cart or a car is arranged with the flight rather than found on arrival.

North of the town the Great Abaco Highway runs up the island to Treasure Cay, which is a beach and a marina on the mainland rather than a cay, about thirty miles by road. It is also a route of its own, so parties heading straight there sometimes fly in on the helicopter to Treasure Cay. From the ferry dock just past it, Green Turtle Cay and the loyalist village of New Plymouth are a short crossing, and it has its own route as the helicopter to Green Turtle Cay. The choice is simply which end of the island the week is built around.

South of the town the highway runs down into pine forest and ends at Abaco National Park, which was created to protect the breeding habitat of the Bahama parrot. It is the only parrot in the Bahamas that nests in the ground, in limestone cavities, and early morning or dusk is when the birds are loud enough to find. The park counts over two hundred bird species, and the eastern fork of the road carries on to the Hole-in-the-Wall lighthouse at the southern tip of the island. It is a rough road and a half-day rather than an hour, so it belongs on an overnight rather than on a day trip, and a scenic flight down the same coastline is the version that fits an afternoon.

A helicopter charter from Miami to Marsh Harbour also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The same aircraft carries on south and east to Grand Bahama, Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. That is what turns one island into a wider Bahamas day. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route. The full island guide sits on the Marsh Harbour destination page, the packaged version is the Marsh Harbour getaway day trip, the whole island group is the Abacos by helicopter and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.