Seaplane from Miami to Eleuthera

The north tip is where a Miami crossing ends. North Eleuthera carries the island's international arrivals because it holds a Bahamas immigration and customs office, so the paperwork happens once and the rest of the day belongs to you. Everything the north end needs sits inside a few miles of the water: the airport, the customs desk and the boat docks out to the cays. That is why a party can clear in the morning and be somewhere else by lunch. Two more ports of entry sit further down the island at Governor's Harbour and Rock Sound, so clearing in the north is a choice rather than a rule. Say where the party is staying when you send the date: on an island a hundred and ten miles long that decides which end you land at. The north end has its own guide on the North Eleuthera destination page.

The Glass Window Bridge is the most photographed thing on Eleuthera and the one sight a seaplane shows better than a car. The island narrows to about thirty feet of rock, barely wider than the road, deep Atlantic blue on one side and the turquoise Bight of Eleuthera on the other. Winslow Homer painted the arch here in 1885 and the name stuck. From the ground you stand on the bridge and look left and right. From a low pass you see it all at once: two oceans, two colours and a thread of road between them. It is also the link between the north end and the rest of the island, so anything in Central or South Eleuthera is on the far side of it. If you want the pass built into the crossing rather than driven to afterwards, say so with the date: it changes the approach and not the aircraft. More of the same flying is on the scenic flights page.

Less than a mile south of the Glass Window Bridge, on the Atlantic side, the rock is pitted with natural pools. Erosion cut them out of the shelf and the sun warms them through the day, so the water in them sits well above the ocean breaking a few feet away. It is the natural pairing with the bridge because it is within walking distance of it, which makes the two of them a single stop rather than two. Parties who land in the north and hire a cart usually do both inside the same hour. The Atlantic side is the exposed side of the island, so this is weather dependent in a way the western shore is not. The swell decides it rather than the calendar, so say if anyone is getting in. Our read on the day is in the weather and delays guidance.

Eleuthera was settled in 1648 and the cave on the north coast is where that started. A group under William Sayle was wrecked on the reef off the north shore, got ashore and sheltered in the cave, which is how it got its name and why the island is named for the Greek word for freedom. Inside there are chambers, stalactites and graffiti cut into the walls by early settlers and by sailors passing through afterwards. It is the oldest thing on the island that you can stand inside and it is a short drive from the airport rather than a day's expedition. The reef that put them there is the same one that still runs along the north coast. It is the Devil's Backbone, a line of rock, coral and moving sand, and boats between Spanish Wells and Harbour Island still take a local pilot aboard for it, which is the reason boats take the inside route and aircraft do not have to. That difference is most of the argument for the seaplane charter to the Bahamas in the first place.

South of the bridge the island widens slightly and Gregory Town sits in the middle of it. Four hundred people live there, the setting has been compared to the Italian Riviera and it is the stop that parties add when they want an afternoon somewhere that is not a beach. Eleuthera is the agricultural centre of the Bahamas and the pineapples are the crop it is known for, which is a Gregory Town story more than an island wide one. The farms are the reason the interior looks nothing like the coast. Surfer's Beach is the other reason to come this far down. The Atlantic swell rolls straight onto it, so it is the one stretch of Eleuthera where the water is the point rather than the view. A board changes what goes in the aircraft, so say so with the date. What travels is in the baggage guidance.

Governor's Harbour is the capital of Eleuthera and it holds the first seat of government the Bahamas ever had. William Sayle founded it, the direct descendant of the landing at the cave up the coast, and the pink sand beaches on this stretch are the ones most people picture. It also has its own customs and immigration, so a party staying in the middle of the island does not have to clear in the north and drive back down. That is worth saying out loud when the date goes in, because it is the difference between an hour on the road and none. The Leon Levy Native Plant Reserve sits here as well, run by the Bahamas National Trust as an environmental education centre and the only reserve of its kind in the country. The full guide to the settlement is on the Governor's Harbour destination page.

Rock Sound is the far end of the island and it has been renamed twice. It began as New Portsmouth and was known for a long time as Wreck Sound, which tells you what the water around it used to do to boats that did not know it. Its own attraction is underground. A wooden ladder drops into a cave known as the Cathedral and at the bottom of it is the Boiling Hole. The Rock Sound Sailing Regatta is the other thing the settlement is known for and it draws boats from well outside the Bahamas. Lighthouse Beach is at the southernmost tip, which is another hour past Rock Sound and effectively a different island in terms of a day plan. Rock Sound also carries customs, so a south end party can clear here instead. If that is the plan, the timing is worth walking through with the charter desk before anything is fixed.

Two small docks at the north end do all the connecting. Three Island Dock, about a mile from the airport, is where the water taxi leaves for Harbour Island. Gene's Bay, a few miles west, is where it leaves for Spanish Wells. Either crossing takes about ten minutes and the boats run through the day rather than to a timetable. That is why so many parties who are really going somewhere else still land here first, plus why a day that is about pink sand starts at the north end. If a boat is meeting you instead, a dock pickup is arranged with the flight rather than found on arrival.

Spanish Wells is not on Eleuthera. It sits on St George's Cay off the north tip, close enough to be part of any day that starts there and far enough to feel like somewhere else. Golf carts are the only transport, which is most of its character. Royal Island is the other, both boat distance from the docks near the airport. That is the pattern of a day on this end of Eleuthera: land once, then move by water. A seaplane changes that. It can put the party down at more than one of them in a day rather than running out and back from one dock, which is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. If a yacht is waiting, it sets you down alongside rather than at a pier, which is a yacht transfer. The island guide is on the Eleuthera destination page, the chain on the Bahamas destinations page.