Seaplane from Miami to Cay Sal

About three quarters of an hour in the air. Cay Sal lies roughly 143 statute miles from downtown Miami, just over 124 nautical and every mile of it is open water. The northwestern cays of the bank sit a little closer, around 127 statute miles. The exact block time depends on the aircraft, the departure point and where the clearance stop falls and it is confirmed with the boarding time before you book.

Yes. Cay Sal Bank is Bahamian territory, 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.

On water, yes. On land, no. The bank has no dock, no harbour and no runway in use: the single airstrip ever laid here served a defence force post on Cay Sal island from the 1960s to the late 1970s and was abandoned with it. The lagoon inside the ring of cays stands in 30 to 52 feet, which is why the whole place is reached by boat or by float and by nothing else.

The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry and the bank does not carry one. Cay Sal Bank is administered as part of the Bimini district and the district's ports of entry are on Bimini and at Cat Cay, around 150 miles north of the bank.

So the aircraft clears there first and flies the last leg afterwards, the same way it works for a private cay anywhere else. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance, so your part is the enquiry.

Yes and it is longer than it looks on a map. The flying is under an hour each way, but the clearance stop sits north of the bank rather than on it, so a day trip is three legs rather than two.

Out early, back before dark, with the aircraft waiting rather than turning around. Send the date and the hours you want on the water and the whole sequence comes back planned, with the clearance already inside the timings.

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. Because the clearance happens at a staffed port on the way home rather than on the bank, the officers' hours usually bite before the daylight does.

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.

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.

Tanks, regulators and hard cases 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.

There is no fill station anywhere on the bank, so whatever the day needs has to leave Florida with you or be aboard the boat that is meeting you.

Ninety six cays and rocks in just over 2,000 square miles of shallow water, with less than six square miles of dry land among them and nobody living on any of it.

What people come for is the water: blue holes that start in 30 to 60 feet and drop hundreds, reefs nobody dives twice a week and seabird colonies that have the place to themselves. The stone lighthouse on North Elbow Cay dates from 1839 and has been dark since the 1940s.

Water operations depend on wind and sea state as well as visibility and an open bank has no lee to shelter in, so a departure can move on a day that looks clear from the beach.

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.

You can and it is the usual way people see the bank: dive boats run out to it from Florida and from Bimini. It costs a day of open water in each direction, because the nearest port of entry sits about 150 miles north and the crossing from the Keys is around 62 miles of unbroken sea.

Over a week aboard a boat that trade makes sense. On a short trip the aircraft is what puts the bank back inside reach.

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. On this route the clearance leg counts too, because it adds distance rather than just time.

Tell us those and you get one all-in number, with the departure point, the boarding time and the hours it is based on, before anything is due. Bahamian and US entry fees are inside that number rather than added at the end.

Yes. The bank sits between Cuba, the Keys and the rest of the Bahamas and the same aircraft carries on to Bimini, Andros, Nassau or back to Key West. Say so when you send the date, because a second leg changes the aircraft and the timing and the clearance is planned around the port of entry rather than the stop you want.

For a yacht or an empty 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.

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.