Seaplane from Miami to Hope Town

The village wraps around a small harbour and the candy striped tower stands on the far side of it. It went up in 1863, carries 120 feet of masonry and throws its light about seventeen miles out over the Sea of Abaco. It is one of the last lighthouses anywhere still lit by a kerosene burner and wound by hand, which is the reason it is the picture everyone has seen of this island group before they know its name. The reef it warns about gave it that name and the settlement of the day argued against building it: wrecking ships on that reef was the trade the village lived on. From the water the harbour is the arrival. From the airport on the next island it is a taxi and a ferry away. That difference is the whole reason this route exists and it is worth naming at the enquiry stage rather than after.

Hope Town has no through road worth the name. The streets are narrow, the cottages are painted and almost everything in the settlement is within a few minutes of the harbour front. That is what makes a short day here worth flying for. A party that lands on the water is already where the village is, so the hours ashore are hours in it rather than hours reaching it. Add a golf cart if anyone in the party would rather not walk the length of the cay, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you.

Tahiti Beach sits at the southern tip of Elbow Cay, four miles or so down the cay from the village. At low water the sand runs out flat and shallow for a long way and the bars stand clear of the water. Low water decides the hour, not the one you would prefer. It is the single part of a Hope Town day that is set by the sea rather than by the aircraft, so a beach picnic here is planned against the tide table before the date is fixed. It is also the far end of the cay from the harbour. From the water that is nothing. From a village arrival it is the length of the island twice, so say at the enquiry stage if the day is really about the sandbars.

Halfway down Elbow Cay the land pinches around a second piece of sheltered water. White Sound is a mid-cay harbour with the resorts and the deeper slips around it, cut and developed in the 1960s, later than the village, and it is where most of the boats of any size lie. 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 on a cay where the slips are split between two harbours it is worth saying which one the boat is in when you send the date. A dock pickup covers the same thing from the shore side.

The reef that gave the lighthouse its job runs more than a hundred and thirty miles down the outside of these cays. It is the third longest barrier reef in the world and it lies close in, which is the part that matters for a short day. Close in means a party with children in it is looking at the same water as the divers rather than at a boat ride away from it. Add water toys if the afternoon stays out there, or a dock pickup if the boat comes to you.

Behind the cays the water turns shallow and quiet. The flats of the Sea of Abaco hold bonefish and they suit a shorter day than the deep water outside does. Parties book bonefishing and flats access for exactly that reason: it starts where the water is, not where the runway is. Say how many are fishing when you send the date, because guides and skiffs are counted per head rather than per party. Tides decide the flats the way they decide the sandbars, which means the useful hours move through the month and the return leg is planned against them rather than against a clock. A fishing day by seaplane is planned from the set-down point rather than from a terminal.

The cays either side of Elbow are all a few minutes of water apart. Man-O-War has the boatbuilding history and a harbour to match it, Great Guana has the long Atlantic beach with Baker's Bay at its northern end and Tilloo is the quiet one. None of them has a runway either, so all of them are the same problem with the same answer. A party that wants two of them in a day is asking for a short hop rather than a second crossing, which is what turns one cay into island hopping. Say which of them are on the list at the enquiry stage. The routing comes back with the boarding time rather than being worked out on the day.

Green Turtle Cay sits well north of Elbow, past Marsh Harbour and Treasure Cay and it is a separate island rather than a neighbour: there is no road to it from anywhere. That makes it the clearest case in the whole group for arriving on the water and it is the reason parties who know the Abacos ask for it by name. On a single day it is a choice against Hope Town rather than an addition to it. Over two days it is a Bahamas day that happens to have two harbours in it.

A private seaplane charter Miami to Hope Town also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The Abacos are the northern end of the archipelago and the same aircraft carries on south and east to Grand Bahama, Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. 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 pier. 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 Elbow Cay destination page, the mainland of the group on the Marsh Harbour page and the rest of the chain on the Bahamas destinations page.