The Crossing
Seaplane from Miami to South Bimini by Private Charter
Bimini is two islands rather than one and a seaplane from Miami to South Bimini goes to the southern half: the green one, the quiet one and the one the border desk sits on. It lies roughly 58 statute miles from downtown Miami, just over 50 nautical. Almost every mile of that is open water.
The crossing runs about 25 minutes in the air. The aircraft lifts off Biscayne Bay, turns east and stays low enough that the colour of the water is the whole view. The Gulf Stream runs deep blue underneath, then the bank comes up pale and green and the island appears as a low line of pine and scrub.
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 asks for before you leave Florida. Your party brings passports and a bag.
South Bimini is the shortest international hop we fly from a seaplane base in Miami and one of several seaplane routes out of the city. Most parties fly it out and back inside one day, some use it as the first clearance of a longer run down the chain and a few come for the quiet of the southern island itself. The wider island guide, both halves of it, sits on the Bimini destination page.
Plan Your South Bimini Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane Miami to South Bimini Actually Works
South Bimini is a different country, so a day there is two border crossings inside one day. Filed in advance it is paperwork. Left to the morning it is the reason an itinerary falls apart. The distance is the easy half.
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 sequence in order, from the water at the Miami end to the ramp where the day finishes on the way home.
Plan Your South Bimini CharterDistance and Time
Fifty eight miles of open water, about twenty five minutes of it in the air
Downtown Miami to South Bimini is roughly 58 statute miles, just over 50 nautical. Nearly all of it is water. On floats that is about 25 minutes airborne, plus the taxi out at the Miami end and the arrival at the far one.
The two Bimini islands lie under three miles apart, so the flying time to either half is the same and what separates them is the ten minutes of water taxi between them, not the crossing.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies to South Bimini together and comes home together
The aircraft stays on the island rather than turning around, so six hours ashore means six hours.
Where You Arrive
South Bimini is the half of Bimini that carries a runway, which is why it can be reached two ways
The strip on South Bimini is a single asphalt runway of about 5,430 feet, identifiers BIM and MYBS. It is the only runway in the Bimini islands. Water is the other way in. Which of the two your date uses is a call the operator makes on the morning rather than a preference you book.
That is the practical difference between the two halves of Bimini. North Bimini is a water arrival and nothing else. South Bimini takes either and the mechanics of the wet version are in the water landing guide, the dry one under amphibious access.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami for South Bimini means the manifest is filed before you reach the dock
Every passenger needs a valid passport, children included. 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 on South Bimini
Arriving in the Bahamas means clearing at a port of entry and South Bimini is one
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry. South Bimini is one, with customs and immigration on the field. The Bahamian tourist board describes it as the main gateway to both islands. So the clearance happens where you were arriving anyway: passports out, forms already filed from Florida and it is quick.
When the day ends somewhere that is not a port of entry, a private cay or an island further down the chain, the aircraft clears here first and flies the last leg afterwards. That is the reason a South Bimini stop shows up in so many itineraries that are not really about South Bimini.
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 desks on the island keep daytime hours and they close before the sun does, so in practice it is the officers who fix your departure rather than the daylight. Both clocks move through the year, so the last useful departure comes with your date rather than as a rule of thumb.
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 South Bimini
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 South Bimini from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your South Bimini 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 South Bimini Seaplane Puts You Down
South Bimini is the green half of the island group. Low pine and scrub, a handful of roads, a marina at the south end and a channel between it and everything the postcards show.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours here, starting with the one decision that shapes the day.
Plan Your South Bimini CharterCrossing to Alice Town
Ten Minutes
The first thing to settle is whether you are staying on this island or crossing to the other one. The two halves lie about two and a half miles apart with a channel between them and there is no bridge.
A water taxi runs the channel in around ten minutes and the road hop from the airstrip to the dock takes another five to ten. Nobody minds that on a stay of a night or two. On a single day out and back it is half an hour of your hours ashore, twice, so it belongs in the plan rather than in the surprise.
Say in your first message which side the day is really about and the answer comes back with the arrival already chosen. Parties whose afternoon is the resort strip and the marinas are often better served landing across the channel on North Bimini instead.
The Shark Lab on the South Shore
Research Station
The best known address on this island is a small wooden house on the south shore with a beach on one side and a little marina on the other. It is a biological field station and it has been studying sharks in these waters since the 1990s.
It is a working research base rather than an attraction, so a visit is booked with them and runs to their calendar, not to yours. Guests who want it built into the day should say so when they send the date rather than turn up at the gate and it pairs naturally with an afternoon in the shallows on water toys or a boat meeting you on a dock pickup.
Bimini Sands and the South Marina
Where You Stay
The southern end of the island carries the marina, the villas and the beaches that most overnight guests here actually book. It is a quieter address than anything across the channel and that is the reason people choose it.
It also sits within a golf cart ride of where the aircraft leaves you, which is the practical argument for arriving on this side. A golf cart or a car waiting at the arrival, a meet and greet if the party is large or arriving late and the rest of the day happens without a boat ride in it.
The Bimini Nature Trail
A Mile on Foot
Behind the marina a trail runs about a mile through the undeveloped middle of the island. It is flat, it is walkable in an hour and it is the only part of Bimini that shows you what the place looked like before anyone built on it.
Iguanas, geckos and birds are the everyday sightings. The one people come for is the Bimini boa, a snake found nowhere else and endangered, which grows to around eight feet. Guided walks are available and self-guided is normal and either way it is the cheapest hour on the island.
The Fountain of Youth
By the Airport Road
A short way along the airport road, under overgrown trees, sits a small limestone well. Local tradition ties it to the spring Juan Ponce de Leon is said to have been looking for when he sailed this way in the sixteenth century and the Bahamian tourist board carries the story on its own pages.
What is actually there is a well, a short path and a few benches. It takes ten minutes and it is on the way in from the strip, so almost everybody who lands here sees it and almost nobody plans an afternoon around it.
The Sapona, South of the Island
Snorkel Depth
A mile or so off the southern end, the concrete hull of a First World War cargo ship stands out of the water where a hurricane put her in 1926. She was later used as a bombing target in the Second World War, so so little of her is left.
The main deck sits in around fifteen feet, shallow enough that snorkellers and divers are looking at the same thing from different depths. It is also the single most photographed object in Bimini and the reason a boat afternoon here usually runs south rather than north.
The Flats and the Drop Off
Fishing Days
The bank behind the island is bonefish water and the wall falls away into deep water a short run offshore, so this small place has carried a fishing reputation out of all proportion to its size for the better part of a century.
Parties book bonefishing and flats access or a full fishing day by seaplane. Rods and hard cases travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day, so say what is coming when you send the date rather than at the slip.
Onward Down the Chain
Same Aircraft
Clearing here works as a first leg rather than as the whole day. The aircraft carries on east and south to Grand Bahama, Nassau, Harbour Island, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas. That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Staying the night 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 packaged version of a day here is the Bimini getaway day trip and the rest of the chain sits on the Bahamas destinations page.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book Seaplane Flights from Miami to South Bimini?
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 South Bimini Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane from Miami to South Bimini: The Gulf Stream, the Bank and Two Ways In
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the crossing, the two borders, the departure points and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
Seaplane Miami to South Bimini: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a South Bimini 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. It lies roughly 58 statute miles from downtown Miami, just over 50 nautical. The crossing runs about 25 minutes in the air. Most parties fly it out and back inside one day, some use it as the first clearance of a longer run down the chain and a few come for the quiet of the southern island itself. The seaplane Miami to South Bimini route ends on the half of the island group that carries both a runway and a customs desk, which is a different arrival from the one across the channel. The link between them is a water taxi that runs across in around ten minutes, plus a five to ten minute road hop from the airstrip to the dock. 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 South Bimini from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to South Bimini
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 South Bimini 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 half 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 South Bimini Seaplane: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a South Bimini crossing
A seaplane from Miami to South Bimini 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 South Bimini: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on South Bimini
A private seaplane from Miami to South Bimini 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 South Bimini charter is for. On a single day out and back it is the piece worth planning around and it is the reason we ask how long you have before we suggest which side to arrive at. Six things decide what flies your date and none of them is a price list. 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 South Bimini: Questions Answered
How long is the flight from Miami to South Bimini?
About 25 minutes in the air. The island lies roughly 58 statute miles from downtown Miami, just over 50 nautical, almost all of it open water. The exact block time depends on the aircraft and on which departure point you leave from. 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 South Bimini?
Yes. South Bimini 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.
What is the difference between South Bimini and North Bimini?
They are two islands about two and a half miles apart with a channel between them. North Bimini is the developed one: Alice Town, the resort strip, the big marinas and most of the hotels.
South Bimini is the quieter half, mostly residential and green and it carries the airstrip and the customs desk. A water taxi crosses between them in around ten minutes. Which side you should arrive at depends on how long you are staying and it is worth saying in your first message.
Can a seaplane land at South Bimini?
Yes and the island is unusual in taking both kinds of arrival. There is water to put down on and there is also a paved strip of about 5,430 feet, identifiers BIM and MYBS, which is the only runway in the Bimini islands.
Which one your date uses is the operator's call on the morning rather than something you book, because it depends on wind and sea state. Either way the customs desk is a short distance from where you step off.
How does customs work on a flight to South Bimini?
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry and South Bimini is one, with customs and immigration on the field itself. So you clear where you were arriving anyway, without a boat ride in between.
If your day ends somewhere that is not a port of entry, a private cay or an island further down the chain, the aircraft clears here first and flies on. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings and arrange the clearance, so your part is the enquiry.
Can you do South Bimini as a day trip from Miami?
Yes and it is the most common way parties do it. Out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft waiting on the island 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. If the plan is to spend the day across the channel in Alice Town, add the ferry to the arithmetic before you fix the hours.
How late can we fly back from South Bimini 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 desks on the island close before the sun does, so in practice they set the return.
Both clocks move through the year, which is why the latest departure for your date comes with the quote rather than as a rule of thumb. A return arriving after dark lands on a lit runway instead of on water.
How many people can fly to South Bimini 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.
What is there to do on South Bimini itself?
More than the airstrip suggests. The shark research station sits on the south shore and runs tours, the nature trail at Bimini Sands runs about a mile through the island's interior and holds iguanas and the endangered Bimini boa and the limestone well known as the Fountain of Youth sits by the airport road.
Offshore to the south the concrete wreck of the Sapona stands out of shallow water at snorkelling depth. It is the half of Bimini people come back to when they want the quiet one.
What happens if the weather stops the 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.
Can you fly to South Bimini from Fort Lauderdale or the Florida Keys instead?
Yes. Bimini 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.
What does a private seaplane charter from Miami to South Bimini 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 on the island.
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 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 South Bimini?
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 South Bimini day costs.
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