Seaplane from Miami to Pig Island

Pig Island is in the Exuma Cays, a chain of 365 islands in the central Bahamas, about 80 miles southeast of Nassau. From downtown Miami it is roughly 259 statute miles, about 225 nautical, almost all of it over water. The cay is uninhabited: no settlement, no airstrip and no pier, which is why a boat or a seaplane is the only way anybody arrives.

Yes. Big Major Cay is the name on the chart and Pig Island is what almost everybody calls it, after the pigs that swim out to meet arriving boats. Pig Beach is the beach on that cay rather than a separate place. If you have been reading about one and planning the other, they are the same anchorage in the Exumas and the same flight from Miami.

About an hour and a half in the air for the crossing itself. The exact block time depends on the aircraft, the departure point and the clearance stop on the way in, so it is confirmed with the boarding time before you book.

What sets the length of the day is not the flying. It is the two border filings and how long the aircraft waits for you at the far end.

On the water beside it, yes. That is the whole point of flying floats to a cay with no runway. What a seaplane may not do is make Pig Island the first landing in the country, because an uninhabited cay is not a port of entry.

The aircraft clears somewhere that is, usually on Andros on the way through, then flies the last leg afterwards. Which port your flight uses comes back with the quote. Once the clearance is done the pilots can put down almost anywhere the water allows.

The Bahamas lets an aircraft enter only at a designated port of entry and there is no desk anywhere near the cay. So the clearance happens at a port on the way in, with the declaration already filed from Florida.

The flight carries on to the anchorage afterwards. The stop is short and it is planned into the day rather than discovered on it. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance, so your part is the enquiry.

Yes. The Exumas are 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.

Nobody can prove it. The story told most often on the island is that sailors put a few pigs ashore to have meat on the way back and never returned.

Other versions have them swimming off a wreck or being moved from a settled cay so the smell would be somebody else's problem. What is certain is that they have been there for decades, they are wild rather than farmed and they swim because visitors arrive by water.

Around twenty adults, plus piglets. The number moves with the litters rather than with the season. They are not a herd anybody manages for visitors: they live on the cay year round, take shade in the scrub in the middle of the day and come down to the water when a boat comes in. That is why the hour you arrive matters more than the month you pick.

Early. The day boats out of Nassau take about three hours each way and the ones from Great Exuma about two, so the anchorage fills from the middle of the morning and empties again in the afternoon.

A private aircraft is not tied to that timetable, which is the practical reason parties fly rather than sail. The pigs themselves are there all year and the crowd is what changes.

Yes and it is how most parties fly it. Out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft waiting in the Exumas rather than turning around, so the hours at the cay are yours.

Both borders are filed in advance from our side and the clearance stop is planned into the hours the officers keep, so the day needs nothing on your list. 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 Exumas sit far enough southeast that the return leg and the clearance stop both have to fit inside that window, which is why the latest useful 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.

Several. The Exuma cay is the original. No Name Cay in the Abacos has a colony that swims out the same way, Rose Island keeps one within a short boat ride of Nassau and there are smaller groups on Ship Channel Cay and on Eleuthera.

They are different islands in different parts of the country rather than one attraction with several entrances, so which one you fly to changes the crossing, the clearance and the length of the day.

Yes. The cay sits in the middle of the chain rather than at the end of it and the same aircraft carries on to Staniel Cay, the wider Exumas, Nassau, Harbour Island and Andros.

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 the stop you want. For a yacht in the anchorage 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.