Seaplane from Miami to Great Harbour Cay

About 50 minutes in the air. Bullocks Harbour lies roughly 143 statute miles from downtown Miami, about 124 nautical and almost all of that is open water. Scheduled small plane services across the same crossing are published at 50 minutes gate to gate.

Your own block time moves a little with the aircraft and with which of the four departure points you leave from, so it 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.

Yes. Great Harbour 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.

On the water beside the settlement, in the protected basin at Bullocks Harbour, which is where the marina, the shops and the carts are.

The island also carries an asphalt runway of its own, GHC and MYBG, out on the eastern side, so a conventional aircraft lands there and then needs ground transport across. A seaplane skips that leg, which on a day trip is the part of the morning you came for.

The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry and this island carries two of them, the marina and the airport, so you clear where you were landing anyway. A clearance outside office hours or on a public holiday carries an overtime fee paid directly to the officers.

If your day ends somewhere in the chain that is not a port of entry, the aircraft clears here first and flies on. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance, so your part is the enquiry.

Yes and the aircraft waits on the island rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours. It is a longer crossing than Bimini, so the useful hours ashore depend on how early the day starts and on the clearance hours at the far end.

Both borders are filed in advance from our side and the clearance is planned into the hours the officers keep. Nothing about it is shared with anyone.

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 customs desk keeps office hours that 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.

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.

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.

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.

It depends how long you are staying. There is no fast ferry from Florida to the Berry Islands, so the alternatives are your own boat, a charter yacht or a connecting flight through Nassau or Freeport.

A crossing under sail or under power is a day of its own in each direction. On a week aboard that is the point. On a short stay the flight is what buys the days back.

Yes. The Berry Islands are reachable from every departure point in the corridor and the crossing from Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach is marginally different in length, 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 island. Say where the morning starts and the answer comes back with it already chosen.

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.

Yes. Great Harbour Cay sits at the top of a chain of some thirty larger cays and the same aircraft carries on to Nassau, Grand Bahama, Andros, Harbour Island 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 around 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.

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.