Private Jet from Miami to Abaco Bahamas

Most parties who ask about the Abacos are picturing this: a harbour of clapboard cottages on Elbow Cay, settled by Loyalists in 1785, under a red and white lighthouse from 1863 that is still the last manned kerosene light in the world. Hope Town is walked rather than driven, with no cars and no carts inside the settlement. From the jet it is Marsh Harbour, then a boat across the Sea of Abaco, which is why the field is chosen for the cay and never the other way round. The settlement has its own page, a private jet to Hope Town, and the rest of the cay is on a private jet to Elbow Cay. The destination guide is on Hope Town.

At the north end of the chain, New Plymouth keeps the best preserved of the Loyalist settlements: narrow streets laid out in the early 1800s, a museum in an old house and a garden for the families who came over after the American Revolution. This is the cay that decides the field. From Treasure Cay it is a short drive to the ferry and a short crossing; from Marsh Harbour it is half an hour of road first. Landing at the northern field is what keeps the afternoon on the sand at Coco Bay. It has its own page, a private jet to Green Turtle Cay, and Manjack Cay sits just beyond it for a quieter day. A beach picnic is arranged with the flight.

Treasure Cay is on the main island despite the name, about thirty miles north of Marsh Harbour, and its beach is a curve of white sand around three and a half miles long above shallow, pale water. For a jet it is the simplest beach day in the chain. The airfield, the marina, the resort and the ferry dock for Green Turtle sit within a few minutes of each other, so a party can land, swim and sit down to lunch without stepping onto a boat at all. Add water toys if the afternoon stays in the water, and the full guide to the settlement is on Treasure Cay.

Man-O-War has built boats for generations. Wooden dinghies are still made there by hand, by the family that also runs the ferry from Marsh Harbour, and models of them are sold out of the workshop. It is a working cay rather than a resort one: boat sheds, a sail loft, a narrow settlement and no bar. Most parties give it an hour or two in a day that is really about something else, and from the Marsh Harbour field it is the shortest boat ride of the lot. Its own page is a private jet to Man-O-War Cay, and the cay guide is on Man-O-War Cay.

Great Guana Cay runs one of the longest beaches in the chain down its ocean side, with the reef close offshore, and on the right day there is even surf, which the Bahamas rarely offers. It is also home to the beach bar whose Sunday roast pulls in half the boats on the Sea of Abaco. Carts and bikes are rented at the dock. This is the cay to build a day around when the plan is sand and a long lunch rather than history. It has its own page, a private jet to Great Guana Cay, and a fly and dine day is built for exactly this. The cay guide is on Great Guana Cay.

Inside the line of cays the water is shallow, sheltered by the reef and only a few miles across. Boats run between the settlements in minutes, which is why the Abacos are known first as sailing water and only second as a beach. For a party arriving by jet that means one thing in practice: once you are on the water, nothing is far from anything else. Two cays in a day is normal, and the field only decides where the boat collects you. If a yacht is meeting you, it waits at the dock nearest the field and the day starts on deck. That is a yacht transfer, and parties staying in town have their own page on a private jet to Marsh Harbour.

The barrier reef runs the length of the cays about a mile offshore and takes the Atlantic swell before it arrives. Behind it the flats hold bonefish, the quiet half of the fishing here, and bonefishing and flats access starts from the nearest dock. Inland on Great Abaco the limestone is full of blue holes. Sawmill Sink is fifty five feet across and a hundred and ten deep, worked by archaeologists as much as by divers, and cave systems run under the pine forest around it. Reef, flats and caves are three different days. Say which one the party is coming for, because each starts from a different dock, and that choice is also the choice of field.

A private jet to the Abacos also works as the first stop rather than the whole trip. The chain is the northern end of the archipelago, and the same aircraft carries on to any island with a runway it can use: Grand Bahama, Nassau, Harbour Island by way of North Eleuthera, or the Exumas. That turns one chain into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Staying overnight changes the bags, not the route. The island guide is on the Abacos destination page, and which islands take a jet directly is set out across the Bahamas jet routes.