The Crossing
Seaplane from Miami to Berry Islands by Private Charter
The Berry Islands are about thirty islands and more than a hundred cays laid out along the northern edge of the Great Bahama Bank and most of them are uninhabited. A seaplane from Miami to Berry Islands is the way into that chain, because the chain has two airports at the ends and open water everywhere in between.
The islands lie roughly 150 miles east of Miami and about 60 miles north west of Nassau, so the crossing runs about 50 minutes in the air. The aircraft lifts off Biscayne Bay, crosses the Gulf Stream in the first quarter of an hour and then runs over the bank, which is pale green and rarely more than a few fathoms deep. Then the floats settle.
Everything between those two moments is ours: the departure point in Miami, the aircraft and the crew, both border filings and the travel documents the Bahamas wants before you leave Florida. Your party brings passports and a bag.
The two settled islands each carry their own page, Great Harbour Cay at the north end and Chub Cay at the south. This page is the chain itself, flown from a seaplane base in Miami and one of several seaplane routes out of the city. The aircraft is a small plane on floats, eight seats and nine in some configurations.
Plan Your Berry Islands Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane Miami to Berry Islands Actually Works
The Berry Islands are a different country, so a day there is two border crossings in one day. Filed in advance it is paperwork. Left to the morning it is the reason an itinerary falls apart. The distance is the short part.
Two governments want the passenger list before the aircraft moves and both filings sit on our side of the desk rather than yours. What follows is the whole sequence in order, from the water at the Miami end to the ramp where the day finishes on the way home.
Plan Your Berry Islands CharterDistance and Time
About a hundred and fifty miles of open water, roughly fifty minutes of it in the air
Downtown Miami to the chain is roughly 150 statute miles, almost all of it water. The north end at Great Harbour Cay is about 143 statute miles out and the south end at Chub Cay about 153, so the block time moves with which cay the day is built around.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies to the Berry Islands together and comes home together
The aircraft stays in the chain rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours.
Water Landing
The floats land on the water, which is what puts the uninhabited cays in reach
The chain carries two airports, Great Harbour Cay in the north and Chub Cay in the south. Everything between them is water, sand and rock. A seaplane lands on the water instead of on a runway, so a cay with nothing built on it is reachable in the same way as one with a marina. The mechanics sit in the water landing guide.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami for the Berry Islands means the manifest is filed before you reach the dock
Every passenger needs a valid passport, children included and a driving licence will not do. What counts as valid is in the travel documents guidance. Names and numbers go in from our side, in advance.
Arriving in the Berry Islands
Arriving in the Bahamas means clearing at a port of entry and the chain has two of them
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry and the Berry Islands carry two, Great Harbour Cay at the north end and Chub Cay at the south. Which of the two your flight uses comes back with the quote. So the first landing of the day is at one of those two: passports out, forms already filed from Florida and it is quick.
Every other cay in the chain comes after that. A private island, a sandbar or a boat at anchor is not a port of entry, so the aircraft clears at one of the two first and flies the last leg afterwards. That is the whole shape of a Berry Islands day and it is why the clearing cay is chosen for you rather than by you.
The Way Back
The way back carries its own clock and it ends usually at US customs in Opa-locka
Water landings run only from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset, so nothing on floats arrives in the dark and the return leg carries a deadline from the moment the date is set.
The Bahamian desks keep office hours that close earlier than the sun, so in practice it is the desk that fixes your departure rather than the daylight. A return that would arrive after dark needs a lit runway rather than water.
The return is filed with US Customs before you leave and that filing decides where the aircraft may put down in South Florida. Opa-locka Executive is where a return from the islands clears, so a day that started on the water often finishes on a ramp. We take care of both ends of any chartered flight from Miami to the Bahamas.
Departure Points
Departure Points for a Seaplane Miami to Berry Islands
A seaplane needs no airport at the Miami end, so the departure point follows your morning rather than the aircraft. Two of these four put you on the water, two on a ramp.
Miami Seaplane Base
555 NE 15th St, Miami
The water departure, on Biscayne Bay just north of downtown. Boarding is from the dock, so nothing between the car and the aircraft looks like an airport. The shortest ground leg for Brickell, downtown and the beach and the usual choice when a yacht is the other half of the day.
Opa-locka Executive
Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, OPF
The executive airport north west of the city, with private terminal handling at both ends of the day. It is also where a return from the islands clears US customs, which is why an international day that leaves from the water often comes back here rather than to the dock it started from.
Miami Executive
Miami Executive Airport, TMB, Kendall
Kendall-Tamiami, in the south west of the county. When the aircraft for your date is already based at this field, the charter starts without a positioning leg. That matters most on a same day return, where an hour lost in Florida is an hour lost at the far end.
Miami International
Miami International Airport, MIA
A pickup rather than a base and the right one when the party is already landing at MIA and the onward leg should leave from the same airport. No aircraft is stationed here, so it is arranged per flight and confirmed with the operator before it is quoted.
How to Charter
How to Charter a Seaplane to Berry Islands from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Berry Islands Charter- 01
Contact Us
Write to us on WhatsApp or by email. Send your dates, how many guests, where you are coming from and where you want to travel. Tell us the hour you would like to leave. A seaplane lands on water and on runways. Your pickup can be a marina, a hotel dock or a beach, and an airport works just as well.
- 02
Get Aircraft and Prices Back
We check what is free on your date and send the seaplanes that fit. Seats, baggage and flight time for each one. Every aircraft costs a little differently, so we can find the best fit for you.
- 03
Confirm and Pay
You pick the aircraft, and we set the pickup point and the landing site. Then everything around the flight. Catering on board, a car or a golf cart waiting when you land, ground transport to your hotel or back to the airport. Flowers if the day is a special one. You approve it, you pay, and your boarding time, departure point and everything included come back to you.
- 04
Just Arrive 30 Minutes Early
You will have no terminal and no queue. Just make sure you are there 30 minutes before. Then you take off, land right at your destination, and enjoy the day.
In the Chain
Where a Miami to Berry Islands Seaplane Puts You Down
The chain runs about forty miles from end to end and the two settled islands sit at the two ends of it. Everything in between is water, sand and rock, which is the whole reason a seaplane changes what a day here can be.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours in between, in the order they ask for it.
Plan Your Berry Islands CharterGreat Harbour Cay and Bullocks Harbour
Where Days Start
Great Harbour Cay is the largest island in the chain, about eight miles long and the one with a settlement on it. Bullocks Harbour is that settlement and the marina and the airport sit beside it. It carries the largest port in the archipelago, so most days that start with a clearance start here. The beaches run down the ocean side of the island and the whole Great Harbour Cay day has its own page.
Chub Cay and the Deep Water
Billfish Capital
Chub Cay is the southern end and the point where the shallow bank stops and the deep ocean begins. That edge is why it is called the billfish capital of the Bahamas. It has a marina, an airport of entry and a Chub Cay day of its own.
Whichever of the two you clear at comes back with the quote. Parties who come to fish usually clear here rather than in the north, because the water they came for starts a few minutes offshore.
Hoffman's Cay and the Blue Hole
A Short Hike
Hoffman's Cay is uninhabited and holds the thing most people have seen a photograph of. The blue hole there is about 600 feet across, with a cliff standing some 20 feet above the water and a short hike in from the beach. It is a stop rather than a day and it works best combined with a beach or a sandbar, on a beach picnic or a wider island hopping afternoon.
The Beaches Between the Two Ends
Mostly Unnamed
The beaches are the reason to spread a day across several cays rather than sit on one. Sugar Beach, Shelling Beach and Sand Dollar Hill are the named ones and most of the rest have no name at all.
Nearly thirty cays make up the chain and most of them are uninhabited, so an empty beach here is the normal case rather than the lucky one. Add water toys if the afternoon is going to be spent on the water.
Shark Creek and the Flats
Bonefish Water
If the day is about fish rather than swimming, the chain has been called the fish bowl of the Bahamas for a long time. Shark Creek and the flats behind the cays hold bonefish. That is why parties book bonefishing and flats access or a full fishing day by seaplane. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.
The Two Cruise Cays
Not Bookable
Two cays in the chain are not open to anybody. Great Stirrup Cay belongs to one cruise line and Little Stirrup Cay, which the ships call CocoCay, is leased by another. They are private port calls rather than destinations, so they are worth naming here only so that nobody plans an afternoon around a photograph of one. Everything else in the chain is open water.
Little Whale Cay and the Private Cays
Ask First
The privately held cays are the other exception. Little Whale Cay and a handful of others are owned outright and a landing there is a matter of permission rather than of aircraft. If you have an invitation, say so with the date: we pass the coordinates, the pilots decide whether they can put down there and a tender has to be in the water to collect you. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.
Onward Down the Chain
Same Aircraft
A private seaplane charter Miami to Berry Islands also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The same aircraft carries on east and south to Grand Bahama, Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. Nassau is about 60 miles southeast of the chain, so a morning here and an afternoon there is one of the easier Bahamas days to build.
Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route. If a yacht is meeting you, the aircraft can set the party down alongside instead of at a pier. That is a yacht transfer and it is the reason a good number of these flights happen at all.
The full island guide sits on the Berry Islands destination page, the packaged version is the Berry Islands getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book Seaplane Flights from Miami to Berry Islands?
Send the departure point, the number of guests and from when to when. You get back what is free on your dates, the boarding time and what the day costs, before anything is booked.
Add-Ons
Seaplane to Berry Islands Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane from Miami to Berry Islands: The Bank, the Borders and a Water Landing
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the crossing, the two borders, the departure points and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Seaplane Miami to Berry Islands: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Berry Islands seaplane
The crossing is not dead time between two airports. A seaplane runs low and slow, so the water under the wing is the first thing the day gives you. Distance and TimeAbout a hundred and fifty miles of open water, roughly fifty minutes of it in the airDowntown Miami to the chain is roughly 150 statute miles, almost all of it water. The islands lie roughly 150 miles east of Miami and about 60 miles north west of Nassau, so the crossing runs about 50 minutes in the air. The Bahamian declaration goes in from Florida, the aircraft clears at one of the two ports of entry on arrival and the US return is filed before you leave, which is what sets where you may land coming home. Charter the aircraft and it is yours alone: the crew and the day belong to your party. Every seat is a window seat on seaplanes in the fleet of this size, so nobody watches the crossing over someone's shoulder. Other seaplane routes from Miami fly the same way.
Seaplane to Berry Islands from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to Berry Islands
Nobody hands you a timetable on a charter. The day is built around the hour you name. You name the hour you want to lift off, the hour you want to be standing on Berry Islands and which water in the city suits your morning. The aircraft belongs to your party for the day, so all three are your decision rather than a departure somebody else set, and a change the week before is a message to us. If the drive is shorter the other way, the same day runs out of Fort Lauderdale. Half an hour before the lift-off is the whole of the check-in. Your party walks from the car to the aircraft, the bags go on in front of you, and the list for that flight carries your names and nobody else's. Nothing about the morning waits on a stranger. Add water toys if the afternoon is going to be spent on the water. And the three quarters of an hour across is a reason in itself. The windows are deep and the aircraft crosses low, so there is room for everybody to sit and watch the water change instead of taking turns at one of them.
Miami to Berry Islands Seaplane: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Berry Islands crossing
A seaplane from Miami to Berry Islands crosses an international border twice in a day. It is the part that goes wrong when nobody files it in advance. Entry into the Bahamas asks for a declaration filed from Florida, clearance at a port of entry on arrival and a US return filed before you leave, which is what sets where you may land coming home. On a Crown Air charter the crew files all three. Your party carries a valid passport and nothing else. Passports for everyone, children included, per the travel documents guidance. What may travel sits in the baggage guidance. That same filing sets where you land coming home: a return from the islands clears at Opa-locka Executive, so a day that began on the water finishes on a ramp and a departure moved by weather runs under the weather and delays policy. If the party changes before the flight, the crew refiles. A name added, a name dropped: that is a message to us rather than a problem for you.
Seaplane Miami Berry Islands: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Berry Islands
A private seaplane from Miami to Berry Islands is booked when the day is worth marking: a birthday, a proposal, a graduation, a weekend away with the people who matter. The flight is short enough that the occasion, not the travelling, is what the day is about. That is what a seaplane Miami Berry Islands charter is for. If you have an invitation, say so with the date: we pass the coordinates, the pilots decide whether they can put down there and a tender has to be in the water to collect you. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route. Some parties fly over for the day and are home the same evening. Others stay on and book the return for the day they want. Both are the same charter, and the whole group travels together on one booking. If there is something to celebrate, say so when you book: catering, a private chef, premium beverages and flowers travel with you. Everything is in place before you board in Miami.
Questions
Seaplane from Miami to Berry Islands: Questions Answered
How long is the flight from Miami to the Berry Islands?
About 50 minutes in the air. The chain lies roughly 150 statute miles east of Miami, almost all of it open water. The exact block time depends on which end of it your day is built around: the north is about 143 statute miles out, the south about 153.
The block time is confirmed with the boarding time before you book. What sets the length of the day is not the flight. It is the two border filings and how long the aircraft waits for you.
Do I need a passport to fly to the Berry Islands?
Yes. The Berry Islands are in the Bahamas, so this is an international flight and every passenger needs a valid passport, children and infants included. Full names and passport numbers go in when you book rather than at the dock, because both border filings are made in advance from our side. There is no check-in desk on this route and nothing to hand over at the slip.
Where does a seaplane land in the Berry Islands?
On the water. The first landing of the day is at one of the two ports of entry: Great Harbour Cay at the north end of the chain or Chub Cay at the south. After the clearance the aircraft can put down elsewhere in the chain, which is the reason to fly floats here at all. Nearly thirty cays make up the Berry Islands and only two of them have a runway.
How does customs work on a seaplane flight to the Berry Islands?
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry and the chain has two of them, Great Harbour Cay in the north and Chub Cay in the south. You clear at whichever one your day starts from. The desks keep daytime office hours and a clearance outside them or on a public holiday carries an overtime fee paid directly to the officers.
If the day ends somewhere in the chain that is not a port of entry, the aircraft clears first and flies on. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance, so your part is the enquiry.
Can you do the Berry Islands as a day trip from Miami?
Yes and it is the most common way parties do it. Out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft waiting in the chain rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours. Both borders are filed in advance from our side and the clearance is planned into the hours the officers keep, so the day needs nothing on your list. Nothing about it is shared with anyone.
How late can we fly back from the Berry Islands on the same day?
A seaplane needs daylight on the water. Landings run from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset, so the day has a hard end rather than an open one. The Bahamian desks close earlier than the sun, so in practice the desk sets the return.
Both clocks move through the year, which is why the latest departure for your date comes with the quote. A return arriving after dark lands on a lit runway instead of on water.
How many people can fly to the Berry Islands on one charter?
The aircraft is chartered whole rather than sold by the seat, so your party travels together on one booking and comes home on the same aircraft. How many seats that is depends on which aircraft flies your date and on the payload once baggage is aboard, so it is confirmed with the quote rather than promised in advance. Send the headcount and say whether children are travelling: they count as passengers on an international manifest.
How much luggage can we take and can we bring rods or dive gear?
Rods, dive gear and hard cases all travel regularly, within the payload for the aircraft on the day. The limit is a weight rather than a bag count, which is why bulky equipment is declared when you book rather than weighed at the dock: it comes out of the same payload the passengers do. Valuable gear leaving the United States can be registered with US Customs in advance.
What happens if the weather stops the Berry Islands flight?
Water operations depend on wind and sea state as well as visibility, so a departure can move on a day that looks clear from the beach and summer afternoons move return legs more often than mornings.
The call belongs to the operator rather than the guest and you are told before you book how a moved departure is handled. Because the aircraft carries only your party, a new slot is agreed with you rather than assigned to you.
Can we land at Hoffman's Cay or one of the empty cays?
Often yes and it is why parties fly floats here rather than a runway aircraft. It is never the first landing of the day, though: the aircraft clears at Great Harbour Cay or Chub Cay first and reaches the empty cays afterwards.
Name the cays you have in mind when you send the date. We pass the coordinates, the pilots decide whether they can put down there and a privately owned cay needs the owner's permission on top of that.
Which cays in the Berry Islands can we not visit?
Great Stirrup Cay and Little Stirrup Cay, the one the ships call CocoCay, are held by cruise lines and are private port calls rather than places to book into. A number of smaller cays are privately owned as well, Little Whale Cay among them. Those need an invitation from the owner. Everything else in the chain is open water, which is most of it.
Can you fly to the Berry Islands from Fort Lauderdale or the Florida Keys instead?
Yes. The chain is reachable from every departure point in the corridor and the crossing from Fort Lauderdale is marginally shorter than the one from Miami, which is worth very little once the drive is counted. The right departure point is the one closest to where you are staying, not the one closest to the islands. Say where the morning starts and the answer comes back with it already chosen.
What does a private seaplane charter from Miami to the Berry Islands cost?
A charter is priced as a whole aircraft, not per seat, so the number moves with three things: which aircraft flies your date, how many of you there are once bags are aboard and how long the aircraft waits in the chain.
Tell us those and you get one all-in number, with the departure point, the boarding time and the hours ashore it is based on, before anything is due. Bahamian and US entry fees are inside that number rather than added at the end.
Can I bring a pet on a seaplane charter?
Yes, pets travel in the cabin with you. The one thing we ask is that you tell us at the enquiry, with the type of animal and its weight, so the seating and the load plan are right from the start.
Next Step
Ready to Book a Seaplane Charter Miami to Berry Islands?
Send the departure point, the party size and from when to when. Nothing else needs planning: you get back what is free on your dates, the boarding time and what the Berry Islands day costs.
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