Helicopter from Miami to Abaco Bahamas

Elbow Cay is about six miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, and Hope Town sits around its harbour. A Loyalist widow founded the settlement in 1785, and the clapboard cottages along the water are the ones in everybody's photographs. The Elbow Reef Lighthouse stands above them: red and white stripes, about a hundred and twenty feet, built in 1863 and the last hand-wound kerosene lighthouse still working anywhere. Its rotating light came off the decommissioned tower on Bimini in 1936, a piece of a crossing we arrange. Cars and golf carts are not allowed inside Hope Town, so the town is walked and carts are rented on the rest of the cay. Say at the enquiry that the day is about Hope Town: it decides which side of the Sea of Abaco the flight finishes on, and whether a cart is waiting when you get there.

Green Turtle Cay lies at the northern end of the chain, off Treasure Cay, and New Plymouth on it is the best kept of the Loyalist settlements: a grid of narrow streets laid out in the early 1800s, a museum in an old house and a memorial garden to the families who arrived after the American Revolution. The water around it is the quiet kind. Coco Bay and the ocean side beaches are shallow and clear, green turtles feed in the grass beds and the sheltered side is where the boats lie. A beach picnic here is a short run rather than an expedition. From a runway this is the far end of everything: land on Great Abaco, drive to Treasure Cay, then wait for the ferry. That stack of connections is the reason parties ask about a helicopter for this end of the chain in the first place.

Treasure Cay is on the main island despite the name, about thirty miles and half an hour of road north of Marsh Harbour, and its beach runs roughly three and a half miles of white sand in one long shallow curve. It is the beach most guests have already seen a picture of before they ask about the Abacos, and it is the easiest one to build a short day around: the airfield, the marina, the resort end of Treasure Cay and the ferry terminal for Green Turtle Cay all sit within a few minutes of each other. That density is why a party wanting beach, lunch and one cay inside a single day usually starts at this end rather than at Marsh Harbour. Add water toys if the afternoon is going to stay on the water.

Man-O-War is the boatbuilding cay and has been for generations. Wooden dinghies are still built there by hand by the same family that runs the ferry across from Marsh Harbour, and models of them are sold out of the workshop. It is a working island rather than a resort one: a narrow settlement, boat sheds, a sail loft, no bars. Parties who go usually go for an hour or two in the middle of a day that is really about something else. It is also the shortest hop of the lot from the border desk, so it fits into an afternoon that already has a cay in it. The island guide sits on the Man-O-War Cay page, and the settlements on the main island on Marsh Harbour.

Great Guana Cay carries one of the longest beaches in the chain down its ocean side, with the reef sitting close in front of it. Under the right conditions there is even surf, which is unusual anywhere in the Bahamas. It is also where the beach bar is, the one with the Sunday roast that half the boats in the Sea of Abaco turn up for. Carts and bicycles are rented at the dock. This is the cay a day gets built around when the point of the day is a beach and a long lunch rather than history. The island guide sits on the Great Guana Cay page. A fly and dine day is exactly this, and from the air the whole cay is visible on the way in rather than something you find after you have landed somewhere else.

The water inside the chain is shallow, sheltered by the reef line and only a few miles across. Boats move between the settlements in minutes, which is why the Abacos are known as sailing water first and a beach destination second. For a party arriving by air that matters in one practical way: nothing here is far from anything else, so the end of the chain you start at is a preference rather than a commitment. Two cays in a day is normal. Four is a boat charter. If a yacht is meeting you, the day is built around where it is lying rather than around a schedule. That is a yacht transfer, and in water this sheltered the tender run at the end of it is short.

The barrier reef runs the length of the cays a mile or so offshore and takes the Atlantic swell before it arrives. Inside it the flats hold bonefish, which is the quiet half of the fishing here, and bonefishing and flats access starts where the water is rather than where the runway is. Inland on Great Abaco the limestone is full of blue holes. Sawmill Sink is fifty five feet across and a hundred and ten feet deep and has been worked by archaeologists as much as by divers. Cave systems run out under the pine forest from there. Reef, flats and caves are three different days rather than three parts of one. Say which one the party is really coming for, because a fishing day by air and a dive day start at opposite ends of the chain.

A helicopter charter from Miami to the Abacos also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The Abacos are the northern hook of the archipelago, and the same aircraft carries on south to Grand Bahama, Harbour Island, Nassau, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. That is what turns one chain into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Staying overnight changes the baggage rather than the route. The full island guide sits on the Abacos destination page and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.