Private Jet from Miami to Bimini

Most parties come for the water first. The reef sits close enough to the beach to swim to in places and drops into deep water a short run offshore. That is why snorkelling is the single most common thing guests ask to build a day around, and why the island carries a diving reputation out of all proportion to its size. Visibility is what brings people back, more than the marine life alone. The boats leave from the marinas at the north end. Say how many are swimming when you send the date and say whether anyone is diving rather than snorkelling: a dive boat and a snorkel boat are not always the same boat. With the aircraft held for your party alone, half a day in the water and a long lunch ashore both fit inside the same visit.

Stingrays are the shallow water answer and the one that works with children along: they come in shin deep over pale sand, close enough to stand with. The nurse sharks gather in the same kind of water and are the calmer half of the island's shark reputation. Neither is tied to a particular month, so both hold up whatever date the party has already fixed. The great hammerheads are the exception and they are the reason the month comes up at all. The window on Bimini runs roughly November through April: that is when the boats go out for them, and it is the trip that fills first, because the boats are few and carry a dozen or so guests each. A party that comes for hammerheads in June has come at the wrong end of the year for them, so they are worth naming when you send the date rather than after it.

If the day is about fish rather than swimming, this is a serious address and has been since the 1930s, when Hemingway fished here and made the island's name. The drop off falls away a mile offshore into deep water and the flats behind the island hold bonefish, so parties book bonefishing and flats access or a full fishing day. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.

The sandbars are the other half of it. At low water the bank dries into open sand in the middle of the sea, with nothing on it and nothing around it. That is where a beach picnic goes and where the rays come in shin deep. Add water toys if the party wants the afternoon on the water rather than on the sand, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you at the marina. The bank that dries at low water sits on the same southward line as the wreck and the cays below the island, so a boat afternoon here runs as one loop rather than three separate errands. Low water decides the hour, not the one you would prefer: it is the single part of a Bimini day that is set by the sea rather than by the aircraft.

On land it is a short ride rather than a drive. The resort strip and the big marinas sit at the north end of the island, the older game fishing club and the bars of Alice Town along King's Highway, and the ocean-side beaches lie a few minutes apart. North and South Bimini are separate islands with a channel between them and the crossing is a small ferry that runs on demand rather than on a timetable. Golf carts are the transport on the north island and they are worth arranging with the flight rather than on arrival, particularly at a weekend. Ask for ground transport at the enquiry and it is waiting when the door opens. Guests who want a table rather than a boat book a fly and dine day, and anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.

The odder things are close too and they are what people photograph. The wreck of the Sapona, a concrete ship left where she grounded, stands out of the water south of South Bimini in about fifteen feet, shallow enough that the snorkellers and the divers are looking at the same thing from different depths. The Healing Hole is a spring back in the mangroves. The Bimini Road, a line of squared stone blocks in about three fathoms off the north west point, is the reason a certain kind of diver comes at all.

Cat Cay and Gun Cay lie a few minutes further south by air and about ten miles by water, and the lighthouse on Gun Cay is usually the turn. Honeymoon Harbour, on the Gun Cay side, is the beach the rays are photographed at and it sits on the same line south as the wreck and the sandbars. Cat Cay itself is a private club. The marina and the houses there are for members and their sponsored guests, so for everyone else it is a stop seen from the water rather than a place to book into. Worth knowing before an afternoon gets planned around it.

A private jet charter from Miami to Bimini also works as the first leg. The same aircraft carries on to Grand Bahama, Nassau, Andros or Exuma and the Out Islands, each of which has a runway a jet can use. Further down the chain the runways run out, and that is worth saying plainly: the smallest cays are reached on a seaplane or a helicopter rather than on this aircraft. Which islands take a jet directly is set out across the Bahamas jet routes. That is what 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, and the baggage guidance sets out what goes in the back. If a yacht is meeting you, that is a yacht transfer, arranged with the flight. Anything larger than luggage is island logistics. The full island guide is on the Bimini destination page, the packaged version is the Bimini getaway day trip and the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.