Private Jet from Miami to Cat Island

Over fifteen beaches lie along the length of the island and almost none of them has anybody on it. That emptiness is the reason parties come this far out instead of stopping at the busy islands nearer Florida, and it is the one thing a shorter crossing cannot buy them. Fernandez Bay on the west coast is a mile of white sand a few minutes from the middle of the island, with a small resort and a bar behind it. Greenwood Beach at the remote south east end runs about eight miles of pink sand into the wind. Old Bight adds five more, Rollezz nearby is the longest unbroken stretch on the island, and Fountain Bay closes in a shallow lagoon with reef a short way out. New Bight Beach is the one the island itself uses, with music at weekends and community picnics on holidays, and it is the closest sand to the field the aircraft stops on. A beach picnic goes on any of them, and water toys turn an afternoon on the sand into one on the water.

Mount Alvernia is the highest ground in the whole of the Bahamas at two hundred and six feet, which sounds like nothing until you are standing on it with water on both sides of the island at once. The Hermitage sits on the summit: a miniature stone monastery built by Father Jerome, an English priest who cut the stone on the island himself. There is an abbey, a chapel, a bell tower and living quarters, all small enough to walk around in a few minutes, and the stair up to them was carved by hand with the Stations of the Cross set into the rock beside it. It is a walk rather than a hike, so it fits inside an afternoon. It also sits a short drive from New Bight, which is the practical reason it ends up on most first visits: the field, the middle of the island and the climb are the same corner of the map.

The reef sits close in along much of the coast. Off Fountain Bay it is a short way from the sand, so snorkelling there needs a swim rather than a boat trip and works with children along. The diving is centred at the south east end, where the resort behind Greenwood Beach runs a dive operation with a long-standing reputation. Kite surfing, kayaking and paddle boarding all run from the same beaches, and the windward side is the one that gets the breeze for them. Say how many are swimming when you send the date, and say whether anyone is diving rather than snorkelling: it changes the boat rather than the day. Parties who want the flats instead book bonefishing and flats access with the flight rather than on arrival.

Cat Island is riddled with blue holes, the inland kind that drop into flooded cave systems. Boiling Hole, Big Fountain, Little Fountain and Gaiters are the named ones, and divers come for them specifically. Mermaid Pool is the one most visitors actually stand at: about sixty five feet across and ten feet deep, with a blue hole in the middle of it that runs down into tunnels. The Healing Hole is a salt lake back off the road that the island has long held to be good for aching joints. None of these needs a boat. They are a short drive off the one road that runs the length of the island, so ground transport for the day is worth settling with the flight. On an island of around fifteen hundred people a car is not something found after you land.

Two ruined estates stand at opposite ends of the island's history. The Armbrister plantation sits at the foot of Mount Alvernia and is the second oldest building in the Bahamas, burned in a revolt in the eighteen hundreds with its arched entrance still standing. At Port Howe in the south are the remains of the Deveaux house, built by an American loyalist who was given the land for retaking Nassau from the Spanish. Both are open and unfenced, and both are photographed far more often than they are written about.

The Cultural Village at Regatta Beach is where the island puts on its own events: a fish fry under the huts, conch and cracked lobster, a bonfire after dark that doubles as the thing that warms the drums. Two weekends are worth planning a date around. The Rake 'n Scrape Festival falls on the first weekend of June, the Bahamian Labour Day weekend, with bands, a gospel concert, a battle of the bands and a farmers market. The sailing regatta lands in the first week of August over the Emancipation holiday. Rake 'n Scrape itself is played on a bent saw scraped with a screwdriver, with a concertina and goombay drums behind it, and Cat Island is where it comes from. Either weekend is a fixed date rather than a movable one, which is the case where an aircraft that does not sit out the weather is worth more than the hours it saves. If the day is also a milestone, it is arranged with the flight.

Arthur's Town sits at the north end of the island and is where Sidney Poitier grew up, which the island has never made much noise about. It is on the ports of entry list in its own right, so a party staying up here does not have to clear in the middle and drive. Peter's Cave is the reason most people make the trip north. It is a working bat cave with tunnels running under that part of the island and one entrance big enough to walk into, coming out again on the ocean side. A local guide takes parties through it. It is at the far end from Hawk's Nest in the south, so a day that takes in both is a day with a car in it and an early departure behind it. That is the part the aircraft decides rather than the itinerary. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.

A private jet charter from Miami to Cat Island also works as the first leg rather than the whole trip. Once the aircraft has cleared into the Bahamas the cruising permit is in hand, so it carries on to Long Island, San Salvador, the Exumas or Harbour Island. Out here that matters more than it does near Florida: the neighbours are an hour apart by air and most of a day apart by anything else. That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. A week changes the baggage, not the route. Where the cay has no paved runway, the last leg runs on a seaplane or a helicopter, and Staniel Cay and the small cays around it are reached that way. If a yacht is meeting you, that is a yacht transfer and it is set up with the flight rather than found on the day. Freight and anything that will not travel in the cabin go on island logistics. The full island guide sits on the Cat Island destination page, the packaged version is the Cat Island getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.