The Crossing
Seaplane from Miami to Chub Cay by Private Charter
Chub Cay is the southernmost island of the Berry Islands and the point where the shallow bank ends and the deep ocean begins. It lies about 153 statute miles from downtown Miami, roughly 133 nautical and almost every mile of that is open water. Chub Cay sits closer to Nassau than to Florida, about 37 miles across the channel.
The crossing leaves the Gulf Stream behind in the first quarter of an hour and then runs southeast over the Great Bahama Bank, which is pale green and rarely more than a few fathoms deep. The colour changes once at the far end. The bank stops at the edge of the Tongue of the Ocean and the water goes from turquoise to indigo in the space of a wingspan. Chub Cay sits on that edge.
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.
This is one of several seaplane routes out of the city and it runs from the same seaplane base in Miami as the shorter Bahamian crossings. The island has 46 residents, an airstrip with its own customs desk and a marina and that is the whole settlement.
Plan Your Chub Cay Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane Miami to Chub Cay 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 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 Chub Cay CharterDistance and Water
A hundred and fifty three miles southeast, almost all of it over open water
Downtown Miami to Chub Cay is roughly 153 statute miles, about 133 nautical. That is close to three times the run to Bimini, so this is a proper crossing rather than a hop across the Stream and the last of it runs over the Great Bahama Bank rather than over anything solid.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies to Chub Cay together and comes home together
The aircraft stays on the island rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours.
Where the Aircraft Puts Down
Chub Cay carries both a runway and protected water, which is rare in the islands
The island has an airstrip of about 5.000 feet with the identifiers CCZ and MYBC and it has the sheltered water inside the reef beside the marina. Most islands this far out offer one or the other. A float aircraft therefore has a second answer on a morning when the water is working and the mechanics of the first one sit in the water landing guide.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami for Chub Cay 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 at Chub Cay
Arriving in the Bahamas means clearing at a port of entry and Chub Cay is one
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry. Chub Cay is one of them and the customs and immigration offices sit at the airstrip on the island itself, so the clearance happens where you were landing anyway. The officers keep daytime hours rather than round the clock hours, so the return is planned against their desk.
The only dedicated seaplane port of entry in the whole country is at North Bimini, so on a float arrival the clearance is arranged at the airstrip and the party is met there. If the day ends somewhere that is not a port of entry, a private cay further up the chain, the aircraft clears here first and flies the last leg afterwards.
The Way Back
The way back from Chub Cay carries its own clock and it ends 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.
On an out island the customs desk closes before the sun does, so in practice it is the desk that fixes your departure rather than the daylight and the latest useful departure for your date comes back with the quote.
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 Chub Cay
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 Chub Cay from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Chub Cay 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 Chub Cay Seaplane Puts You Down
Chub Cay is one island at the bottom of a chain of about thirty, with 46 residents, a marina, an airstrip and a reef a few hundred yards offshore. The whole settlement is walkable and the water landing puts you beside it.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours in between, in the order they ask for it.
Plan Your Chub Cay CharterThe Pocket and the Billfish Grounds
Most Asked For
Most parties come here for one reason and it is under the boat rather than on the island. The Tongue of the Ocean, the trench that runs down the middle of the Bahamas, reaches around six thousand feet and it comes to an end just off the northwest corner of the Berry Islands.
Where that deep water meets the shallow bank is the ground the fishing fleet calls the Pocket and it is why Chub Cay is known as the billfish capital of the Bahamas. Blue marlin, white marlin, sailfish, tuna, wahoo and mahi-mahi all come out of the same few miles of water and the run to it is short enough that a morning is a morning rather than a delivery trip.
Boats are arranged on the island and the tackle travels with you, within the payload for the aircraft on the day. Say at the enquiry how many are fishing and whether you are trolling or on the flats, because those are two different boats. The flats side of it runs through bonefishing and flats access and the full day through a fishing day by seaplane.
Mama Rhoda Rock and the Reef
Snorkel Depth
The shallow half of the water sits even closer. Mama Rhoda Rock stands a few hundred yards west of the marina, with staghorn coral in the shallows around it and eels in the heads and it is snorkelling depth rather than diving depth.
Because it is that close, half a morning in the water and a long lunch ashore both fit inside the same visit. The reef takes about five minutes by boat from the marina, which on an island this size means the tender is the whole logistics chain.
Say how many are swimming when you send the date and say whether anyone is diving rather than snorkelling. Add water toys if the afternoon is going to be spent on the water, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you.
The Chub Cay Wall
Why Divers Come
Past the reef the bottom stops being a bottom. The wall drops off the edge of the bank into the trench, with caves and caverns cut into it and the sites along that edge run from about ten feet down to a hundred. That range is the unusual part. On most islands the shallow snorkelling and the deep wall are an hour apart by boat.
Here they are the same short run, so a party with one diver and three swimmers does not have to split the day in two. Tanks, fills and boats are arranged on the island. The wider water side of a day here runs through adventure tours and the aircraft waits either way rather than turning around.
The South Shore Beaches
Beach Days
If the day is not about the water it is usually about the sand. The south side of the island carries the beaches, all of them a short walk or a golf cart ride from the marina and none of them with anything built along them.
This is the quiet end of the Bahamas rather than the busy one. Forty six people live here and there is no town behind the beach, which is the whole reason a certain kind of guest asks for this island rather than a bigger one.
A beach picnic goes to whichever of them the wind favours on the day. Guests who want a table rather than a towel book a fly and dine day and anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.
Hoffman's Cay and the Blue Hole
A Run North
The blue holes are the thing people photograph up here. The one on Hoffman's Cay sits inland behind the beach, ringed by rock, with a cliff of about twenty feet hanging over the edge of it that people jump from.
It is a boat run north from Chub Cay rather than a walk, up through the middle cays of the chain and it is usually paired with a beach stop rather than done on its own. Chub Cay carries one of the two blue holes in the Berry Islands, so the pair of them is a day rather than an errand.
An afternoon like that is one loop rather than three errands, so it goes in at the enquiry rather than afterwards: it moves the hour the aircraft is needed back, which on a route with a customs desk at both ends is the part that has to be planned. The tide decides the hour up there rather than the timetable does, so the return leg is set against the water and not against the clock.
Great Harbour Cay and Bullocks Harbour
Up the Chain
The Berry Islands are about thirty islands and over a hundred small cays and 807 people live on all of them together. Almost all of those people are at the top of the chain, at Bullocks Harbour on Great Harbour Cay.
That is the other settlement out here, with its own marina and its own beaches on the ocean side. It sits far enough north that it is a separate day rather than an afternoon, so parties who want both usually fly between them instead of running the length of the chain by boat.
Between the two ends lie the small private cays the chain is known for, most of them without a dock and none of them with a runway.
Where the water allows it the aircraft can put down at one of them: the pilots decide from the coordinates rather than from a chart and a tender has to be in the water to collect you, which is the one thing that has to be arranged from the island end rather than from ours.
Nassau Across the Channel
Thirty Seven Miles
Chub Cay is closer to Nassau than it is to Florida. Nassau lies about 37 statute miles south across the channel, roughly 33 nautical, which is a quarter of the run in from Miami. That is why the island works as a base rather than only as a destination.
A party can be at the reef in the morning and in town in the afternoon, or the other way round, on the same aircraft and without a second international clearance, because both ends are already inside the Bahamas. Where the day is really about the capital rather than the Berries, Miami to Nassau by seaplane is the direct version of this crossing and the shorter one.
Onward Down the Chain
Same Aircraft
A private seaplane charter Miami to Chub Cay also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The same aircraft carries on to Andros, Harbour Island, Grand Bahama or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. 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 slip. 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 Chub Cay destination page, the packaged version is the Chub Cay 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 Chub Cay?
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 Chub Cay Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane from Miami to Chub Cay: The Bank, the Drop Off and a Water Landing
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the crossing, the two borders, the water you land on and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Seaplane Miami to Chub Cay: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Chub Cay 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. It lies about 153 statute miles from downtown Miami, roughly 133 nautical and almost every mile of that is open water. Mama Rhoda Rock, the shallow reef with the staghorn coral, lies a few hundred yards west of the marina and the dive sites run from about ten feet down to a hundred, all of them minutes away by boat. The hold is yours too, so seaplanes in the fleet are matched to the load , which matters more here than on a short hop because rods, coolers and dive gear travel on most of these bookings. 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 Chub Cay from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to Chub Cay
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 Chub Cay 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 Chub Cay Seaplane: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Chub Cay crossing
A seaplane from Miami to Chub Cay 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 Chub Cay: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Chub Cay
A private seaplane from Miami to Chub Cay 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 Chub Cay 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 Chub Cay: Questions Answered
Where is Chub Cay and how far is it from Miami?
Chub Cay is the southernmost island of the Berry Islands, roughly 153 statute miles southeast of downtown Miami, about 133 nautical, almost all of it open water. It sits closer to Nassau than to Florida: the Bahamian capital is about 37 miles across the channel. The island itself is tiny, 46 residents at the last census, with an airstrip, a marina and the reef immediately offshore.
Do I need a passport to fly to Chub Cay?
Yes. Chub Cay 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.
Does a seaplane land on the water at Chub Cay or on the runway?
Chub Cay is unusual out here in having both. There is sheltered water inside the reef beside the marina and there is an airstrip of about 5.000 feet carrying the identifiers CCZ and MYBC.
Most islands this far into the Bahamas offer one or the other, so a float aircraft has a second answer on a morning when the sea state will not take a water landing. Which one your date gets is decided by the operator and confirmed with the itinerary.
How does customs work on a seaplane flight to Chub Cay?
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry and Chub Cay is one, with the customs and immigration offices on the airstrip on the island itself. So you clear where you were landing anyway.
The officers keep daytime hours rather than round the clock hours and a clearance outside them is not something to plan a day around. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance, so your part is the enquiry.
Can you do Chub Cay as a day trip from Miami?
Yes. The aircraft waits on the island rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours. It is a longer crossing than Bimini at about 153 miles each way, so more of the day sits in the air and the clearance at both ends is planned into the hours the officers keep.
Parties who come for the fishing usually stay a night or two instead. Both versions are the same flight with a different return date.
How late can we fly back from Chub Cay 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. On an out island the customs desk closes 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 Chub Cay 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.
Can we bring fishing rods, coolers or dive gear?
Rods, dive gear, hard cases and coolers 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.
This route sees more of it than most, because a good share of these bookings are fishing days. Valuable gear leaving the United States can be registered with US Customs in advance.
What is Chub Cay known for?
Deep water, close enough to reach in a morning. The island sits at the northern edge of the Tongue of the Ocean, a trench that drops to around six thousand feet and the grounds where that trench meets the shallow bank are the reason Chub Cay is called the billfish capital of the Bahamas.
Blue marlin, white marlin, sailfish, tuna, wahoo and mahi-mahi are all caught out of the same harbour mouth. The shallow reef beside the marina is the other half of it.
What happens if the weather stops the Chub Cay 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.
Is it faster to fly to Nassau and take a boat to Chub Cay?
It is not faster and it is rarely simpler. Nassau is about 37 miles away, so the boat leg is a couple of hours on a good day and it depends on a charter or a slip at the far end.
Flying direct means one clearance rather than two arrivals and the aircraft sets you down beside the marina rather than at an airport with a transfer still to come. The Nassau routing makes sense when Nassau is the actual destination.
Can you fly to Chub Cay from Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach instead?
Yes. Chub Cay is reachable from every departure point in the corridor and the difference in distance between them is small against 153 miles. The right departure point is the one closest to where you are staying, not the one closest to the island, because the drive costs more than the extra minutes in the air. Say where the morning starts and the answer comes back with it already chosen.
What does a private seaplane charter from Miami to Chub Cay 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 on the island.
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 the seaplane take us on from Chub Cay to another island the same day?
Yes. Chub Cay sits in the middle of the archipelago rather than at the end of it and the same aircraft carries on to Nassau, Andros, Harbour Island, Grand Bahama and the Exumas.
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 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 Chub Cay?
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 Chub Cay day costs.
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