The Crossing
Seaplane from Miami to Cat Island by Private Charter
Cat Island sits deep in the Bahamian Out Islands, long and thin with about 1,500 people on it and more than fifteen beaches. A seaplane from Miami to Cat Island is the way there that does not spend the first half of the day in Nassau waiting for a connection.
The crossing is a single leg to Cat Island rather than two flights with a change in the middle. It runs about an hour and three quarters in the air. The exact block time moves with the aircraft and the departure water, so it comes back with the boarding time. What does not change is that the island holds its own Bahamian clearance at New Bight.
Everything between the two ends 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.
This is one of the longer crossings we fly from a seaplane base in Miami and one of several seaplane routes out of the city. The aircraft is chartered whole rather than sold by the seat, so the party on board is your party.
Plan Your Cat Island Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane Miami to Cat Island Actually Works
Cat Island is a different country, so a trip there is two border crossings. Filed in advance it is paperwork. Left to the morning it is the reason an itinerary falls apart. The distance is the straightforward 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 Cat Island CharterDistance and Time
Cat Island lies far enough out that the crossing runs close to two hours
Cat Island is one of the Out Islands rather than one of the near ones, so this is a longer leg than a hop to Bimini or Grand Bahama. Reckon on about an hour and three quarters in the air. Scheduled small plane services over the same water are published at about two hours with the clearance stop inside that. Your own block time moves with the aircraft and with the departure water.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies to Cat Island together
The aircraft stays on the island rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours.
New Bight
New Bight is Cat Island's own airport of entry, so nobody detours through Nassau
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated airport of entry and Cat Island has one of its own at New Bight. That is the whole argument for this route: the clearance happens on the island you came for rather than at a hub two hundred miles away. Passports out, forms already filed from Florida. The cruising permit that lets the aircraft fly on within the Bahamas is issued at that same desk.
Hawks Nest and the South End
Hawks Nest has its own strip, so the last few minutes of a Cat Island day are short
Hawks Nest sits on the south west peninsula with a private marina and an airstrip of its own, close enough to the rooms that the walk is measured in feet rather than in minutes. It is not an airport of entry, so the aircraft clears at New Bight about thirteen miles away first and flies the last leg afterwards. There is no runway lighting there either, which makes it a daylight arrival.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami for Cat Island 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.
The Way Back
The way back from Cat Island carries its own clock and ends at US customs
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 latest useful departure for your date is set by whichever closes first, the light or the New Bight desk, because the daylight window moves through the year and that desk runs 09:00 to 17:30.
The return is filed with US Customs before you leave and that filing decides where the aircraft may put down in South Florida, 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 Cat Island
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 Cat Island from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Cat Island 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.
On the Island
Where a Miami to Cat Island Seaplane Puts You Down
Cat Island is long rather than small, about fifty miles from Arthur's Town in the north to Port Howe in the south, with one road along it and roughly 1,500 people living on the whole of it.
That length is why the set-down matters here more than it does on a small island and it is why what follows is sorted by what people actually fly out for.
Plan Your Cat Island CharterThe Cat Island Beaches
Most Asked For
More than fifteen beaches sit along the length of the island and almost none of them has anybody on it, which is the whole reason people come this far out rather than stopping at the busy islands. Fernandez Bay is a mile of white sand about five minutes from New Bight, with a small resort and a beach bar behind it.
Greenwood Beach runs eight miles of pink sand at the remote south east end. Old Bight adds another five miles of white sand, Rollezz nearby is the longest continuous beach on the island and Fountain Bay ends in a shallow lagoon with reef a short way offshore.
New Bight Beach is the one the island itself uses, with live music at weekends and community picnics on holidays. A beach picnic goes on any of them and water toys turn an afternoon on the sand into one on the water.
Mount Alvernia and the Hermitage
The Climb
Mount Alvernia is the highest point in the whole of the Bahamas at 206 feet, which sounds like nothing until you are standing on it and can see water on both sides of the island at once. On top of it sits the Hermitage, a miniature stone monastery built by Father Jerome, an English priest who cut the stone on the island itself.
There is an abbey, a chapel, a bell tower and living quarters, all of them 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 short walk rather than a hike, so it fits inside a day. Parties who want the island seen from above instead book a scenic flight on the way in.
The Reefs and the Diving
In the Water
The reef sits close in along much of the coast. Off Fountain Bay it is a short way from the sand, so snorkelling here needs a swim rather than a boat trip. The dive side of it 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. 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. For parties who want the flats instead, bonefishing and flats access and a full fishing day by seaplane are both arranged with the flight.
The Blue Holes and the Healing Hole
Odd and Close
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 65 feet across and 10 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 from the road that runs the length of the island, so ground transport for the day is worth arranging with the flight rather than on arrival.
The Plantation Ruins at Port Howe
History
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, unfenced and photographed far more often than they are written about.
The Cultural Village and Rake 'n Scrape
Festivals
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. If the date is built around either weekend, a milestone celebration on the island is arranged with the flight.
Peter's Cave and Arthur's Town
The North End
Arthur's Town sits at the north end with an airstrip of its own and is where Sidney Poitier grew up, which the island has never made much noise about. Peter's Cave is the reason most people drive up here. It is a working bat cave with tunnels running under that part of the island and one entrance big enough to walk into and it comes out again on the ocean side.
A local guide takes parties through it. It is at the far end from Hawks Nest, so a day that takes in both is a day with a car in it. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.
Onward Down the Chain
Same Aircraft
A private seaplane charter Miami to Cat Island also works as the first leg rather than the whole trip. Once the aircraft has cleared at New Bight the cruising permit is in hand, so it carries on to Long Island, San Salvador, the Exumas, Eleuthera or Harbour Island.
That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. 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 dock. 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 Cat Island destination page and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book Seaplane Flights from Miami to Cat Island?
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 Cat Island Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane from Miami to Cat Island: The Out Islands Without the Connection
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the crossing, the clearance at New Bight, the two borders and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Seaplane Miami to Cat Island: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Cat Island 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. Cat Island lies about 273 nautical miles out from Miami, deep enough into the chain that most people arrive by way of somewhere else. Whether we set down on the water near your beach or on a strip is settled after the clearance leg, because the first arrival in the country has to be at an airport of entry and every water set-down carries its own approval from the Bahamas Civil Aviation Authority. The hold is yours too, so seaplanes in the fleet are matched to the load and where the water will not take the aircraft on the day the answer is amphibious access rather than a cancelled morning. 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 Cat Island from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to Cat Island
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 Cat Island 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. Parties meeting a boat go alongside on a You choose the hour and the stay. And the crossing 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 Cat Island Seaplane: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Cat Island crossing
A seaplane from Miami to Cat Island 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 None, 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 Cat Island: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Cat Island
A private seaplane from Miami to Cat Island 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 Cat Island charter is for. There is no terminal to walk through and no queue at either end, so the party stays together from the car to the cabin. The aircraft waits rather than turning around for its next departure, so an afternoon that runs long is simply an afternoon that runs long. 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 Cat Island: Questions Answered
How long is the flight from Miami to Cat Island?
Cat Island is one of the Out Islands rather than one of the near ones, so this is a longer crossing than a hop to Bimini or Grand Bahama.
The block time depends on which aircraft flies your date and on the departure point, so it is confirmed with the boarding time before you book rather than promised in advance. What sets the length of the day is not the flight anyway. It is the two border filings and how long the aircraft waits for you on the island.
Do I need a passport to fly to Cat Island?
Yes. Cat Island is 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.
Is Cat Island a port of entry, or do we have to clear customs in Nassau?
Cat Island has its own airport of entry at New Bight, so the clearance happens on the island you came for. That is the difference between this route and most Out Island trips: no detour to a hub, no connection, no second boarding.
The Bahamas requires the first landing in the country to be at a designated airport of entry and New Bight is one, so a direct crossing is the normal shape of the day rather than the exception.
Can you fly us straight to Hawks Nest?
Yes, with one stop first. Hawks Nest sits on the south west peninsula with its own marina and airstrip, close enough to the rooms that the walk is measured in feet.
It is not an airport of entry, so the aircraft clears at New Bight about thirteen miles away and then flies the last few minutes. Hawks Nest has no runway lighting, which makes it a daylight arrival, so it is planned into the day rather than left to the afternoon.
Where does the seaplane land on Cat Island?
That depends on the water on the day, on where your party is staying and on which aircraft flies the date, so it is agreed with the quote rather than fixed here.
The island has New Bight in the middle, Arthur's Town at the north end and Hawks Nest in the south west and it carries more than fifteen beaches along its length. Tell us where you are staying and the set-down is chosen for that, not the other way round.
Can Cat Island be done as a day trip from Miami?
It can and it is a longer day than Bimini or Nassau because the island lies further out. Out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft waiting on the island rather than turning around, so the hours ashore are yours.
Both borders are filed in advance from our side and the clearance at New Bight is planned into the hours the officers keep. Most parties who go this far out stay at least one night, which changes the baggage rather than the route.
How late can we fly back from Cat Island 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 and the same is true of a wheeled arrival at a strip without lighting.
Both windows 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 Cat Island 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 to Cat Island 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 Cat Island 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.
What is there to see on Cat Island?
The Hermitage on Mount Alvernia is the one everybody climbs: a small stone monastery on the highest point in the Bahamas at 206 feet, hand built by Father Jerome with a carved stair up to it.
Below that are the plantation ruins, the Armbrister estate at the foot of the hill and the Deveaux house at Port Howe. Then the blue holes, the Healing Hole and the beaches, which are the reason most parties come. The full guide sits on the Cat Island destination page.
Can the seaplane take us on from Cat Island to another island the same day?
Yes. The cruising permit is issued when you clear at New Bight, which is what lets the aircraft fly on inside the Bahamas, so Long Island, San Salvador, the Exumas and Eleuthera are all the same afternoon.
Say so when you send the date, because a second leg changes the aircraft and the timing. For a yacht or a private cay 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.
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 Cat Island?
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 Cat Island day costs.
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