Seaplane from Miami to Rose Island

About an hour in the air. Rose Island lies roughly 190 statute miles from downtown Miami, about 165 nautical and almost all of it open water. The aircraft clears on New Providence first, which is a few minutes west of the island, so the last leg is short.

The exact block time depends on the aircraft and the departure point and 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. Rose 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 and nothing to hand over at the slip.

On the water, off the beach. Rose Island has no roads and no airstrip, so there is nothing to land a wheeled aircraft on and no pier a scheduled boat runs to.

The floats put the party down in the shallows and you step ashore where you are going to spend the day. The set-down itself depends on wind and sea state on the morning, which is why the pilots pick the side of the island rather than the itinerary doing it in advance.

A private aircraft may make its first Bahamian landing only at a designated airport of entry and Rose Island is not one. So the aircraft comes in on its wheels at the airport of entry on New Providence, minutes west of the island and flies the last leg afterwards.

Passports out, forms already filed from Florida and it is quick. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance, so your part is the enquiry.

Yes and it is the most common way parties do it. Out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft staying rather than turning around, so six hours on the beach means six hours.

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 and there is no boat timetable in the middle of it.

It depends on where the day starts. From Nassau the island is a boat ride of about half an hour each way and that is a defensible trade if you are already staying on New Providence.

From Miami it is not: you would fly an hour, clear the border, drive to a marina and then give up an hour of the day to a crossing you have just flown over. Flying the last few minutes puts the party on the sand at the same time the boat is still loading.

Rose Island lies a few miles east of Paradise Island and roughly eight and a half miles east of Nassau, which is why it reads as remote and is not.

The harbour, the hotels and the airport of entry are all minutes away by air, so a party can spend the day on an empty beach and still have dinner in town. Both are on their own pages: Nassau and Paradise Island are separate crossings we fly.

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.

Snorkel gear, dry bags and coolers 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.

On an island with nothing built on it, what you bring is what you have, so it is worth listing it in the enquiry.

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.

There are beaches on both sides, a shallow lagoon in the middle, a reef close in and a beach club on it. There are no roads, no settlement and no infrastructure across most of it, which is the reason to go.

The coast was used in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball: the stolen bomber crash-lands off the island and the villain's boat runs onto its rocky southern shore at the end of the picture. What that means for a day out is quiet, not sights.

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.

Tell us those and you get one all-in number, with the departure point, the boarding time and the hours on the island it is based on, before anything is due. Bahamian and US entry fees are inside that number rather than added at the end.

Yes. The island sits at the near end of the chain rather than the far end and the same aircraft carries on to Harbour Island, Eleuthera, the Exumas or back across to Bimini.

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.