Private Jet from Miami to San Salvador

San Salvador is the island most people already know one fact about: Columbus is generally held to have come ashore here on 12 October 1492, his first landfall in the New World. The place usually given for it is Long Bay, on the calm west coast a short drive south of Cockburn Town. Two markers stand along the sand. A plain white cross was put up in 1956, and the Chicago Herald monument, a stone sphere on a plinth, has been there since 1891, with the ground around both kept as Landfall Park. There is no visitor centre to queue for, only a beach, low scrub and the view that came first. Parties who want the story told on the spot rather than read off a sign arrange it through cultural tours.

The reason divers fly this far is under the water just off the beach. San Salvador rises on its own out of deep ocean, and the reef wall begins at around forty feet before it falls away into blue, so the dramatic part of a dive starts close to the surface. More than fifty named sites run along that edge, most of them a few minutes to around twenty from shore by boat, and the operators work the calm west side where the settlement and the marina are. Tanks are sorted on the island and the rest of the kit flies with you. Tell us at the enquiry who is diving and who is snorkelling, because that is two boats rather than one. The wider water side of a trip runs through adventure tours.

Not every day out here is spent under the water, and the beaches are the other half of the island. Grotto Beach on the south west side is a long, empty sweep of sand with nothing built behind it. Sandy Point at the southern tip moves with the seasons. Summer swell carries the sand west and leaves shallow pools behind, winter swell brings it back, so the shape of the beach is never quite the one you saw the last time. A beach picnic is set up on whichever side the wind leaves calm that day. Water toys turn the afternoon into one on the water, and a dock pickup covers the day a boat collects you from the shore.

Dixon Hill Lighthouse on the north east side is one of the very few in the world still run by hand. The keeper winds the clockwork and lights the lamp each evening, and visitors are usually taken up past the mechanism on the way to the top. The gallery gives you the whole island in one look: the lakes down the middle, the reef line along both coasts and deep water starting just offshore. It is a short stop and fits easily into an afternoon out of the water. It stands on the opposite side of the island from the field, a short drive across, so a car held for the day is what makes it an easy stop rather than a search for a ride. Say at the enquiry if the afternoon should include it, and ground transport comes back priced with the flight.

The island's old name for itself is the Land of Lakes, and the map explains it: more of the interior is water than land. The Great Lake runs nearly the full length of San Salvador, and the main settlements all sit along its edge. Before there was a road around the coast, the lake was the way across, and people went from one settlement to the next by boat down the middle of the island. On the approach it is the first thing you see, a long sheet of inland water inside a thin ring of land. It is also why the island feels bigger than twelve miles once you are on it: the road runs around the water rather than across it, so a day that takes in both coasts is a day with a car in it. That is worth settling with the flight, because a spare car is not found here after you land.

San Salvador has its own rock iguana, and it lives almost nowhere else on earth. It is critically endangered and protected, and the animals keep to a few small cays just off the coast rather than the settled part of the island. Seeing them is arranged rather than chanced upon: there is a public viewing area so that the cays themselves can be left alone. It takes an hour or two rather than a day, and it sits well beside the lighthouse or a morning on the lake. Because the cays are protected, the visit runs on the rules of the people who look after them rather than on a timetable of ours. Tell us at the enquiry that it is on the list and it is fitted around the dive boats and the return hour, not squeezed in at the end of the day.

Bonefish Bay sits on the west coast, and the name is an honest description. The flats are firm enough to wade, so a guide walks alongside rather than poling a skiff, and the deeper water for bigger fish begins a short run out. Parties book bonefishing and flats access for a morning or build the whole trip around it. Rods and tackle fly with you, and it is worth listing them at the enquiry rather than at the ramp. The flats and the dive boats work the same west side of the island, a short way from the field, so a morning wading and an afternoon on the wall fit into one day without a long drive between them. Anything bigger than a rod bag is worth naming early, because it decides the space in the hold.

A private jet charter from Miami to San Salvador 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 Rum Cay, Cat Island, Long Island or the Exumas. At this corner of the chain that matters: the neighbours are a short hop by air and most of a day by anything else. That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. A longer trip changes the baggage, not the route. Where the next cay has no paved runway, the last leg runs on a seaplane or a helicopter. If a yacht is meeting you at the marina, that is a yacht transfer and it is arranged 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 San Salvador destination page, the packaged version is the San Salvador getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.