The Crossing
Seaplane from Miami to Sandy Point by Private Charter
Sandy Point is the southernmost settlement on Great Abaco and a seaplane from Miami to Sandy Point is the only way there that ends at the water rather than an hour up the road from it. The settlement sits at the south west tip of the Abacos, roughly 175 statute miles from downtown Miami, close to 152 nautical and almost all of that open water.
The crossing runs about 70 minutes in the air. The aircraft lifts off Biscayne Bay, turns east across the Gulf Stream and comes down the west side of the island. The last ten minutes are the best part of it: the bank shallows, the flats open out pale green under the floats and the settlement shows as a line of roofs on the point.
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.
This is one of the longer crossings we fly from a seaplane base in Miami and one of several seaplane routes out of the city. The aircraft is a small plane on floats, eight seats and nine in some configurations.
Plan Your Sandy Point Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane Miami to Sandy Point Actually Works
Sandy Point is a different country, so a day there is two border crossings in one day. Filed in advance it is paperwork. Left to the morning it is the reason an itinerary falls apart. The distance is the short part.
Two governments want the passenger list before the aircraft moves and both filings sit on our side of the desk rather than yours. What follows is the whole sequence in order, from the water at the Miami end to the ramp where the day finishes on the way home.
Plan Your Sandy Point CharterDistance and Time
A hundred and seventy five miles of open water, about seventy minutes of it in the air
Downtown Miami to Sandy Point is roughly 175 statute miles, close to 152 nautical, almost all of it water. On floats that is about 70 minutes airborne, plus the taxi out and the arrival at the far end.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies to Sandy Point together and comes home together
The aircraft stays at the south end of the island rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours.
Water Landing
The floats come down beside the settlement, so the hour on the road from Marsh Harbour disappears
Sandy Point carries its own strip about a mile south of the houses, identifier MYAS, one runway of 4,501 feet. What it does not carry is a road that is quick: the drive up to Marsh Harbour runs about an hour each way. A float arrival puts the party at the water instead. The mechanics sit in the water landing guide.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami for Sandy Point 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.
Arriving at Sandy Point
Arriving in the Bahamas means clearing at a port of entry and Sandy Point is one, on request
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry. Sandy Point is on that list twice, the airport and the public dock and both carry the note that clearance there happens on request. So the officers are asked for before the date is fixed rather than on the morning.
When a clearance at the point does not come together, the aircraft clears further up the island at Marsh Harbour first and flies the last leg afterwards. That is a few minutes in the air rather than the hour the road takes.
The Way Back
The way back carries its own clock and it ends usually 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.
The customs desk closes earlier than the sun does, so in practice the desk fixes your departure rather than the daylight. Both clocks move through the year, so the last useful departure comes with the quote. A return that would arrive after dark needs a lit runway rather than water.
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 Sandy Point
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 Sandy Point from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Sandy Point 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 Sandy Point Seaplane Puts You Down
Sandy Point is a working fishing settlement at the end of the road rather than a resort strip and the water landing puts you at the front of it. Everything below is a short walk or a few minutes by cart, which is the whole reason a day here works and a day that starts with an hour of road does not.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours in between, in the order they ask for it.
Plan Your Sandy Point CharterThe Bonefish Flats
Most Asked For
Most come for the flats first. Sandy Point sits where the shallow water wraps the south west corner of the island, so the wading starts within sight of the settlement rather than after a boat ride.
The bonefish here run mostly in the three to five pound class, with bigger fish reported off the same water, so the settlement has a name among anglers out of all proportion to its size. That is also why parties book bonefishing and flats access or a full fishing day by seaplane.
Guides work out of the settlement itself, so a morning on the water and a long lunch ashore both fit inside the same visit. Say how many are fishing when you send the date and say whether you are bringing rods: tackle comes out of the same payload the passengers do, so it is declared with the booking rather than weighed at the dock.
The Settlement and the Beach
A Short Walk
On land it is a short walk rather than a drive. Sandy Point is one of the largest settlements in the South Abaco district and it is still a working fishing village: the boats, the dock and the houses sit along the same stretch of shore and the beach runs off the end of it.
What the place is known for on a plate comes off those boats, because the isolation and the fishing are the same fact seen from two sides. 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.
Customs and immigration are arranged for the arrival rather than kept open all day here, so the walk into the settlement happens after the formalities not around them. That is the one thing shaping a day from the outside: it is why an early departure is worth more than a late one. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.
Abaco National Park and the Pine Forest
Behind the Village
Behind the settlement the island turns into pine forest and most of it is protected. Abaco National Park was declared on 9 May 1994 and covers 20,500 acres at the southern end of Great Abaco, about 5,000 of them Caribbean pine.
The park exists for one bird in particular. The Bahama parrot is endangered and nests in limestone holes in the ground here rather than in trees, which is what made a protected area necessary at all. Warden patrols and predator control are the reason the breeding season still works.
It is also the reason the approach looks the way it does: the last minutes of a scenic flight into the point run over unbroken pine on one side and pale flats on the other, which is a view you do not get on the way into a town.
Rocky Point and the Birds
Early Morning
Rocky Point is the headland a short way from the settlement and it is where the frigate birds are, hanging over the shore without appearing to move. The south west corner of Abaco is on the birding maps for shorebirds and landbirds together, which is unusual: most places give you one or the other.
Early morning is the hour for it, so it pairs with a flats day rather than competing with one. Both want the same light and the same tide.
Offshore off the South End
Deep Water Days
If the day is about deep water rather than wading, the shelf is close. Bottom fishing runs alongside the flats work out of the same settlement and the point is a more sheltered place to start from than the open eastern shore of the island.
Add water toys if the party wants the afternoon on the water rather than on the sand, or a dock pickup if a boat is meeting you at the government dock.
Moore's Island, West of the Point
Across the Water
Moore's Island lies west of Sandy Point across the water and it is the reason the point has a dock at all: this is the mainland end of that crossing. For a visitor it is the nearest thing to a day somewhere with nobody on it.
A seaplane changes what that costs in time, because the water between the two is the runway rather than the obstacle. Parties that want to see it from above rather than land on it fold it into the arrival.
The Abaco Cays to the North
Minutes by Air
North of the point the island runs a long way and the cays sit off its eastern shore: Hope Town on Elbow Cay with its candy striped lighthouse, Great Guana Cay, Green Turtle Cay and the long beach at Treasure Cay. By road that is a day.
By air it is minutes, so a party that lands at the point in the morning can still be on a cay in the afternoon. The whole island sits on the Abacos destination page and the wide version of this crossing is Miami to the Abacos.
Onward Down the Chain
Same Aircraft
A private seaplane charter Miami to Sandy Point also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The same aircraft carries on to Grand Bahama, Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. That is what turns one settlement into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day.
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 guide sits on the Sandy Point destination page, the packaged version is the Sandy Point getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book Seaplane Flights from Miami to Sandy Point?
Send the departure point, the number of guests and from when to when. You get back what is free on your dates, the boarding time and what the day costs, before anything is booked.
Add-Ons
Seaplane to Sandy Point Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane from Miami to Sandy Point: The Gulf Stream, the Bank and a Water Landing
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the crossing, the two borders, the reach past the point and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Seaplane Miami to Sandy Point: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Sandy Point 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. The settlement sits at the south west tip of the Abacos, roughly 175 statute miles from downtown Miami, close to 152 nautical and almost all of that open water. The crossing runs about 70 minutes in the air. Sandy Point is the southernmost settlement on Great Abaco and a seaplane from Miami to Sandy Point is the only way there that ends at the water rather than an hour up the road from it. The bonefish here run mostly in the three to five pound class, with bigger fish reported off the same flats, so a fishing day by seaplane is booked from the water rather than from a runway. 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 Sandy Point from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to Sandy Point
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 Sandy Point 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 hour across 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 Sandy Point Seaplane: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Sandy Point crossing
A seaplane from Miami to Sandy Point 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 Sandy Point: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Sandy Point
A private seaplane from Miami to Sandy Point 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 Sandy Point 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. Sandy Point is a port of entry on request, so the officers are arranged with the date rather than assumed. 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 Sandy Point: Questions Answered
How long is the flight from Miami to Sandy Point?
About 70 minutes in the air. Sandy Point sits at the south west tip of Great Abaco, roughly 175 statute miles from downtown Miami, close to 152 nautical and almost all of it open water.
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.
Do I need a passport to fly to Sandy Point?
Yes. Sandy Point 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.
Where exactly is Sandy Point and what is the difference from Marsh Harbour?
Sandy Point is the southernmost settlement on Great Abaco, a working fishing village at the south west tip and one of the largest settlements in the South Abaco district. Marsh Harbour is the commercial centre roughly an hour north by road, with the international airport and the shops. Arriving at Marsh Harbour and driving south costs you that hour twice. Arriving at Sandy Point does not.
How does customs work on a seaplane flight to Sandy Point?
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry. Sandy Point appears on that list twice, the airport and the public dock and both are marked as clearance on request rather than a desk that stands open all day.
So the officers are arranged when the date is set. If that does not come together, the aircraft clears at Marsh Harbour first and flies the last few minutes afterwards. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance, so your part is the enquiry.
Can you do Sandy Point as a day trip from Miami?
Yes. The crossing is short enough that it works. Out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft waiting at the point rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours. Both borders are filed in advance from our side and the clearance is planned into the hours the officers keep. For a fishing party the day usually turns into two or three, because the flats are the reason people come.
How late can we fly back from Sandy Point 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. The customs desk closes earlier than the sun, so in practice the desk sets the return.
Both clocks move through the year, which is why the latest departure for your date comes with the quote. A return arriving after dark lands on a lit runway instead of on water.
How many people can fly to Sandy Point on one charter?
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.
Can we bring fly rods, coolers and tackle to Sandy Point?
Rods, hard cases 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 tackle 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.
What happens if the weather stops the Sandy Point 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 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.
Is it better to fly to Sandy Point or to arrive by ferry?
It depends where you are coming from. The fast ferry to Sandy Point runs from Nassau rather than Florida and takes close to two hours, so it only helps a trip that already starts in the Bahamas.
From Miami the alternatives are a runway arrival at Marsh Harbour and an hour of road, or the water at the point itself. On a single day that hour is the part of the trip you came for.
Can you fly to Sandy Point from Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach instead?
Yes. Sandy Point is reachable from every departure point in the corridor and the crossing from Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach 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.
What does a private seaplane charter from Miami to Sandy Point cost?
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 at the point.
Tell us those and you get one all-in number, with the departure point, the boarding time and the hours ashore it is based on, before anything is due. Bahamian and US entry fees are inside that number rather than added at the end.
Can the seaplane take us on from Sandy Point to another island the same day?
Yes. Sandy Point is the south end of a long island with cays all the way up it and the same aircraft carries on to Marsh Harbour, Hope Town, Treasure Cay, Great Guana Cay and Green Turtle Cay.
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 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.
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 Sandy Point?
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 Sandy Point day costs.
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