The Crossing
Seaplane from Miami to Hawks Nest by Private Charter
Hawks Nest sits on the south west point of Cat Island, at the far end of one of the emptiest islands in the Bahamas. It is roughly 313 statute miles from downtown Miami, about 272 nautical and almost every mile of that is open water.
The crossing runs about an hour and three quarters in the air. The aircraft leaves Biscayne Bay, crosses the Gulf Stream and the bank, then picks up the long thin shape of Cat Island from the north west. Which aircraft flies a distance like this is decided to the route rather than assumed and it is confirmed with the quote.
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.
Hawks Nest is not a port of entry, so the aircraft clears on the way and flies the last leg afterwards. That is the ordinary way to reach a quiet point in the islands and it is one of several seaplane routes out of the city. The same island is also served further north at New Bight, which is the Cat Island crossing.
Plan Your Hawks Nest Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane Miami to Hawks Nest Actually Works
Cat Island is a different country, so a day at Hawks Nest is two border crossings. Filed in advance it is paperwork. Left to the morning it is the reason an itinerary falls apart. The second thing that shapes this route is that the point itself is not a port of entry.
The Bahamas wants the first landing in the country at a designated one, so the aircraft clears somewhere on the way and flies the short last leg afterwards. That is not a complication. It is exactly what makes a quiet point reachable at all and none of it lands on your list.
Plan Your Hawks Nest CharterDistance and Time
Two hundred and seventy two nautical miles of open water to Hawks Nest, about an hour and three quarters of it in the air
Downtown Miami to the point is roughly 313 statute miles, about 272 nautical, almost all of it water. That works out at about an hour and three quarters airborne. The aircraft for a leg of this length is decided to the route rather than assumed and the block time is confirmed with the boarding time before you book.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies to Hawks Nest together and comes home together
The aircraft stays at the point rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours. On an island this empty that matters more than it does close to Florida: there is no later flight to fall back on.
Where the Aircraft Puts Down
Hawks Nest carries water and a paved strip on the point, so a seaplane has two ways in
The strip sits at sea level on the south west point, identifier MYCH and the creek and the marina are beside it. An amphibian can use either, so the sea state on the morning does not end the day. Which one is used is the operator's call on the day. The mechanics of the water option sit in the water landing guide.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami for Hawks Nest 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 and there is no check-in desk anywhere on this route.
Clearing Into the Bahamas
Arriving by seaplane means clearing at a port of entry first, because Hawks Nest is not one
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry. Hawks Nest is not one, so the aircraft clears on the way and flies the last leg afterwards. The ones that sit on this line are New Bight further up the same island, Exuma International at George Town and Nassau.
Which of them is used depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date and it comes with the quote. You do not choose it and you do not arrange it: we file both borders, we organise the clearance and it is quick. Then the aircraft carries on to the point.
The Way Back
The way back from Hawks Nest carries its own clock and it usually 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 a crossing of this length that window is the real constraint rather than a formality and the clearance stop on the way home sits inside it too. The latest useful departure for your date comes 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 Hawks Nest
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 Hawks Nest from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Hawks Nest 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 Hawks Nest Seaplane Puts You Down
Cat Island is about 150 square miles with roughly 1,600 people on it and Hawks Nest sits at the quiet south west end of that. The point carries a marina, a creek and a paved strip at sea level and very little else.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours in between, in the order they ask for it.
Plan Your Hawks Nest CharterThe Flats and the Bonefish
Most Asked ForFishing is why most of these flights happen. The flats behind Cat Island are strongest at the north and south ends of the island and the point is one of the addresses anglers name for bonefish. That is why parties book bonefishing and flats access or a full fishing day by seaplane straight off the aircraft. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.
Say how many are fishing when you send the date and say whether it is fly or spin. A guide and a skiff are booked around the tide not around the flight, so the hour the aircraft arrives and the hour the water is right are two different questions and both fit into the same day when they are asked early.
Exuma Sound and the Offshore Grounds
Tuna and Dorado
Offshore is the other half of it. Exuma Sound falls away deep just west of the point, so the blue water is minutes from the dock rather than an hour out. The current between Cat Island and Long Island is the piece of water the boats work and tuna and dorado are what comes out of it.
That is a different boat from a flats skiff and a different day, so it is worth naming which one you are after when you send the date rather than after it.
The Wall and the Deep Drop
Diving Days
Diving here is wall diving rather than reef pottering. The drop starts around thirty metres and falls past a hundred, which is a serious day out and not the shallow snorkelling of the islands closer to Florida. That changes what the party needs to bring and what the operator needs to know.
Certification levels and how many are diving rather than swimming both belong in the enquiry, because a dive boat and a snorkel boat are not always the same boat and gear comes out of the same payload the passengers do.
Mount Alvernia and The Hermitage
The One Climb
The one thing on this island everybody climbs is Mount Alvernia, the highest point in the Bahamas at 63 metres, a little over 200 feet. It is a modest hill anywhere else and the roof of the country here.
A stone stair runs up it to The Hermitage, a miniature monastery built in 1939 by Father Jerome, with the Stations of the Cross carved into the rock on the way up. It stands above New Bight, about an hour up the island from the point and it is the photograph people come home with.
The Beaches at the Point
Nobody On Them
The beaches are the rest of it and they are empty in a way that takes some getting used to. With 1,600 people spread along an island this long, an afternoon on the sand usually means an afternoon alone on it.
A beach picnic goes wherever the tide suits and water toys make sense here precisely because there is nothing else on the sand and nothing to walk to. Both are arranged with the flight rather than found when you arrive.
The Marina and the Creek
Boats Meet Here
The point carries a marina and a creek behind it, which is the reason crews and owners use this end of the island at all. Boats working the sound come in here rather than running up to New Bight.
If a yacht is meeting you, the aircraft can set the party down alongside instead of at a pier. That is a yacht transfer and a dock pickup covers the case where the boat is already on the dock. Either way the coordinates go in with the enquiry and the pilots decide whether they can put down there.
New Bight and the Settlements
Up the Island
Cat Island is strung thinly rather than clustered. Port Howe and Old Bight lie east of the point, New Bight and Smith's Bay sit in the middle, Bennett's Harbour and Arthur's Town are at the north end and Arthur's Town is the capital.
New Bight is also a port of entry, so it is one of the places a flight can clear on the way in. Which one yours uses depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date and it comes back with the quote.
Ground transport is worth arranging in advance rather than on arrival: there is very little of it and the distances between settlements are real. Guests who want a table rather than a boat book a fly and dine day. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.
Onward Across the Sound
Same Aircraft
A private seaplane charter Miami to Hawks Nest also works as one stop rather than the whole day. Great Exuma lies about 41 nautical miles west across the sound and New Bight is about 11 up the same island, so Great Exuma, Cat Island at New Bight, Long Island and San Salvador are all the same afternoon.
That is what turns one point into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route. The full island guide sits on the Cat Island destination page, the crossing to the port of entry end of the island is Miami to Cat Island and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book Seaplane Flights from Miami to Hawks Nest?
Send the departure point, the number of guests and from when to when. You get back what is free on your dates, the aircraft the distance calls for, the boarding time and what the day costs, before anything is booked.
Add-Ons
Seaplane to Hawks Nest Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane from Miami to Hawks Nest: The Sound, the Point and a Clearance on the Way
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the crossing, the two borders, the aircraft and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Seaplane Miami to Hawks Nest: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Hawks Nest 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 is roughly 313 statute miles from downtown Miami, about 272 nautical and almost every mile of that is open water. Guests who want a table rather than a boat book a fly and dine day and a party that fills the aircraft simply books the aircraft rather than a row of seats inside it, on one booking, whoever is travelling. Great Exuma lies about 41 nautical miles west across the sound and Long Island is south of that, so the aircraft can carry on to Great Exuma, Long Island or San Salvador the same afternoon. Cat Island is a different country, so a day at Hawks Nest is two border crossings. 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 Hawks Nest from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to Hawks Nest
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 Hawks Nest 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 Hawks Nest Seaplane: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Hawks Nest crossing
A seaplane from Miami to Hawks Nest 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 Hawks Nest: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Hawks Nest
A private seaplane from Miami to Hawks Nest 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 Hawks Nest 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. Which is used depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date and it comes with the quote. 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 Hawks Nest: Questions Answered
How long is the flight from Miami to Hawks Nest?
About an hour and three quarters in the air. Hawks Nest lies roughly 313 statute miles from downtown Miami, about 272 nautical, almost all of it open water.
On a leg this length the aircraft is decided to the route rather than assumed and the block time is confirmed before you book. What sets the length of the day is not the flight. It is the clearance stop and how long the aircraft waits for you.
Do I need a passport to fly to Hawks Nest?
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.
Where exactly is Hawks Nest and how is it different from New Bight?
Hawks Nest is the south west point of Cat Island, at the quiet end, with a marina, a creek and a paved strip at sea level.
New Bight sits about 11 nautical miles up the same island and is one of the ports of entry, so it is one of the places a flight can clear on the way in. Which one yours uses comes back with the quote. Same island, different day.
How does customs work on a seaplane flight to Hawks Nest?
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry and Hawks Nest is not one. So the aircraft clears on the way and flies the last leg afterwards.
The ones on this line are New Bight further up the island, Exuma International at George Town and Nassau. Which is used depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date and it comes with the quote. None of the paperwork is yours: we file both borders and arrange the clearance.
Can you do Hawks Nest as a day trip from Miami?
Yes, though it is a longer day than the near islands. Nearly two hours out, a clearance stop on the way and the same coming back, so the useful hours ashore are shorter than the calendar suggests. The aircraft waits at the point rather than turning around. Many parties stay overnight instead, which changes the baggage rather than the route.
How late can we fly back from Hawks Nest 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 on this crossing the clearance stop on the way home sits inside that window too.
Both clocks move through the year, so the latest useful departure for your date comes with the quote. A return arriving after dark needs a lit runway.
How many people can fly to Hawks Nest on one charter?
The aircraft is chartered whole rather than sold by the seat, so your party travels together on one booking. How many seats that is depends on which aircraft flies your date and on the payload once baggage and fuel for the distance are aboard, so it is confirmed with the quote rather than promised in advance. Say whether children are travelling: they count as passengers on an international manifest.
Can we bring rods and dive gear to Hawks Nest?
Yes and most parties on this route do. Rods, dive gear and hard cases all travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.
The limit is a weight rather than a bag count, so bulky equipment is declared when you book rather than weighed at the dock: on a leg this long the fuel comes out of the same payload. Valuable gear leaving the United States can be registered with US Customs in advance.
What is the fishing like at Hawks Nest?
It is the reason most of these flights happen. The flats behind Cat Island are strongest at the north and south ends and the point is one of the addresses anglers name for bonefish.
Offshore, Exuma Sound falls away deep just west of the point and the current between Cat Island and Long Island is where tuna and dorado are worked. Say which you are after: it changes the boat rather than the flight.
What else is there to do on Cat Island?
Mount Alvernia is the highest point in the Bahamas at 63 metres, a little over 200 feet, with a stone stair up to The Hermitage, a miniature monastery built in 1939 by Father Jerome and carved with the Stations of the Cross.
The diving is wall diving, starting around thirty metres and dropping past a hundred. Beyond that it is empty beaches: about 150 square miles with roughly 1,600 people on it.
What happens if the weather stops the Hawks Nest 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. 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.
Can you fly to Hawks Nest from Fort Lauderdale or the Florida Keys instead?
Yes. Hawks Nest is reachable from every departure point in the corridor and on a crossing this long the difference between them is small next to the drive to get there. 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.
What does a private seaplane charter from Miami to Hawks Nest cost?
A charter is priced as a whole aircraft, not per seat, so the number moves with which aircraft flies your date, how many of you there are once bags are aboard and how long the aircraft waits at the point.
The distance matters here too, because it decides the airframe. Tell us those and you get one all-in number, with the departure point and the hours ashore it is based on. Entry fees are inside it.
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 Hawks Nest?
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 Hawks Nest day costs.
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