Seaplane to Nassau from Miami

Nassau Harbour lies roughly 184 statute miles from downtown Miami, just over 160 nautical and almost all of it is open water. The time in the air depends on which aircraft flies your date and which departure point you leave from, so it is confirmed with the boarding time before you book rather than quoted off a table.

What sets the length of the day is not the flight anyway. It is the two border filings and how long the aircraft waits for you.

Yes. Nassau 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.

At Lynden Pindling International, identifiers NAS and MYNN, on the runway like any other aircraft. Nassau Harbour has no authorised seaplane landing area, so there is no water landing on New Providence and nobody is set down at a resort dock or beside Paradise Island.

The aircraft is amphibious, which is why it can leave Miami off the water and still arrive on wheels. The floats come into their own on the next leg, out into the cays.

Lynden Pindling is a designated port of entry, so you clear where you were landing anyway rather than stopping somewhere else first. That is the difference between Nassau and most of the Out Islands.

Bahamian desks keep daytime hours, roughly 09:00 to 17:30 and a clearance outside them or on a public holiday carries an overtime fee paid directly to the officers. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance.

Yes and it is the most common way parties do it. Out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft waiting at Nassau rather than turning around, and you tell the crew when you want to leave.

Both borders are filed in advance from our side and the clearance is planned into the hours the officers keep, so the day needs nothing on your list. Nothing about it is shared with anyone.

The Nassau end is a runway, so the daylight rule that governs a water landing does not fix your departure there. It applies at the Miami end if the day is meant to finish back on the water: landings run from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset and that window moves through the year.

The latest useful departure for your date comes with the quote. A late return simply finishes on a runway in Florida instead.

The aircraft is chartered whole, 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 list.

Golf bags, 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 what the day is for. Nassau is well served by airlines, so the argument is not distance, it is the two hours around the flight: no terminal in Miami, no bag drop, no queue and an aircraft that waits for you instead of leaving without you.

On an overnight with a fixed schedule the scheduled seat is defensible. On a single day, or when the trip carries on into the cays afterwards, the charter is the whole point.

Yes. Nassau is reachable from every departure point in the corridor and the crossing from Fort Lauderdale is marginally shorter than the one from Miami, 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.

Yes and Nassau is the usual place to start that leg rather than finish. Once the aircraft has cleared at Lynden Pindling it can carry on to Staniel Cay, Norman's Cay, Eleuthera or Harbour Island and on that leg a water landing is back on the table.

Say so when you send the date, because a second leg changes the aircraft and the timing. 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.