The Crossing
Seaplane from Miami to Stocking Island by Private Charter
Stocking Island is the strip of sand that makes Elizabeth Harbour a harbour. A seaplane from Miami to Stocking Island is the only way across that finishes on the island itself rather than opposite it. It lies about a mile off George Town on Great Exuma, roughly three miles of dune and casuarina between the Atlantic and one of the best sheltered anchorages in the Bahamas.
Downtown Miami to the harbour is about 318 statute miles, some 276 nautical, almost every one of them water. On floats that is around an hour and three quarters in the air. The aircraft leaves Biscayne Bay, crosses the Gulf Stream and the Bahama Bank and comes down inside the harbour rather than on an airfield.
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, which is the airframe that makes a landing in a harbour possible at all. Which one flies your date is decided for the distance rather than assumed. It is named in the quote.
Plan Your Stocking Island Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane Miami to Stocking Island Actually Works
The Exumas are a different country, so the day carries two border crossings. Filed in advance it is paperwork. Left to the morning it is the reason an itinerary falls apart. The distance is the straightforward 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 Stocking Island CharterDistance and Time
Three hundred and eighteen miles of water, about an hour and three quarters of it in the air
Downtown Miami to Elizabeth Harbour is roughly 318 statute miles, some 276 nautical, almost all of it open water. On floats that is about an hour and three quarters airborne, plus the taxi out and the water landing at the far end. Which aircraft flies a crossing this length is decided for your date and confirmed with the quote.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies to Stocking Island together and comes home together
The aircraft stays with you rather than turning around, so six hours on the island means six hours.
Water Landing
The floats come down inside Elizabeth Harbour, so there is no runway and no ferry at the end
Stocking Island has no airstrip and no road. Every runway arrival in the Exumas lands on Great Exuma and then needs a car and a boat to finish the journey. A seaplane puts the party down on the harbour water off the beaches themselves. The mechanics sit in the water landing guide.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami for Stocking Island 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 in the Exumas
Arriving in the Bahamas means clearing at a port of entry and the island itself is not one
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry. Great Exuma carries several, the international airport and the public dock at George Town among them. All of them sit within a few miles of the anchorage.
So the aircraft clears first and flies the short last leg to the harbour afterwards. Which port of entry that is depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date. It comes with the quote rather than being fixed here. The forms are filed from Florida, so the stop is short.
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. On a crossing of this length the daylight matters more than on the short hops.
The customs desk on Great Exuma keeps daytime hours of its own. Both clocks together set the last useful departure for your date. 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 Stocking Island
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 Stocking Island from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Stocking Island 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 Stocking Island Seaplane Puts You Down
Stocking Island is roughly three miles of dune, casuarina and sand lying across the mouth of Elizabeth Harbour, about a mile off George Town. There is no road on it, no car and no airstrip, so the water landing is not a flourish but the whole point.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours in between, in the order they ask for it.
Plan Your Stocking Island CharterVolleyball Beach and the Harbour Side
Most Asked For
Most parties come for the harbour side first. The water there is flat, pale and shallow, the boats lie off it in the deeper channel and the beach runs for a long way with almost nobody on it.
The one place with a name on that shore is the beach bar, open since 1998 and started as a day camp for the people living aboard in the anchorage: conch salad, a grill, a volleyball court in the sand and a Sunday that fills up. It is the reason the middle of the island is busy at lunchtime and empty again an hour later.
A party that would rather not share a table at all takes the sand a few hundred yards along instead, where there is nothing built and nobody selling anything, then has catering brought out with them for the afternoon, or lands beside a boat on a dock pickup and eats aboard instead. Both are arranged with the flight rather than found on the day.
The Monument and the Island Trails
A Short Walk
The high ground in the middle of the island carries a stone beacon, put up as a navigation mark for shipping in the salt trading days and standing there still. It is the one climb on the island, it is short and it is the reason half the parties who land here walk inland at all rather than staying on the sand where the floats stopped.
From the top you look down Exuma Sound on one side and over the whole anchorage on the other, which is the view people come back with rather than the beach shot.
Walking paths run the length of the island between the two coasts, with benches and markers along them and a free map handed out at the beach, so the walking needs no guide and no planning beyond a look at the hour and the state of the tide.
An unhurried loop out to the beacon and back takes something over an hour, so it fits inside a day rather than needing one. Flip flops are enough, water is not sold along the way and there is no shade on the ridge, so the walk goes better before lunch than after it. Say if anybody in the party would rather stay on the flat and the landing beach changes.
The Mystery Cave
Snorkel Depth
A blue hole opens in the shallows a couple of minutes by boat from the beach and it is the oddest thing on the island. Jacques Cousteau wanted to know how far back it ran, put red dye into it on an outgoing tide and went up in a helicopter to look: the dye came out two miles offshore.
Diving the cave itself is for people trained for caves. The mouth is another matter, shallow enough to snorkel and thick with fish, which is where most guests actually spend the half hour.
Sand Dollar Beach and the Ocean Side
Two Coasts
The island is narrow enough to walk across in a few minutes. The two sides are not the same holiday. The harbour side is flat water and boats. The Atlantic side has surf on it, a long dune line behind and driftwood along the tide mark.
That is where the empty beaches are: whole stretches of white sand with nothing built on them and nobody standing on them, which on a single day is the difference between a beach you visited and a beach you had.
Sand dollars give one of those beaches its name. Say which of the two the party wants when you send the date. It changes where the aircraft puts you down and how far you walk with what you brought.
The Stromatolites
A Million Years
At the edge of the sand sit stromatolites, mounds built by bacteria and dated at more than a million years old. They look like grey rock and they are the reason marine biologists come to this particular island rather than a prettier one.
Getting to them is a walk rather than a boat trip: around the bay at low water, then a wade across the channel. Low water is what decides the hour, not the one you would prefer. It is the single part of a day here that is set by the sea rather than by the aircraft.
Elizabeth Harbour and the Anchorage
Yachts Alongside
The island is what makes the harbour. It stands between Exuma Sound and the shore, so the water behind it stays flat when the Atlantic does not. That one fact is why boats gather here in numbers through the winter and why the anchorages behind the island are counted in dozens rather than in ones.
For a seaplane that is a landing area rather than a view. Floats can set a party down alongside a boat at anchor instead of at a pier, which is a yacht transfer and the reason a good number of these flights happen at all. Add water toys if the afternoon is going to be on the water rather than on the sand.
George Town Across the Harbour
One Mile OverEverything the island does not have sits a mile away on Great Exuma. George Town has the shops, the straw market, the bank, the airport and the docks. Boats cross the harbour to it in minutes. That is the split worth understanding before you book. The town is where the island's practical business happens.
The island is where the day happens. A party staying on Great Exuma comes over for the beach. A party landing on the water starts on the beach and goes across only if it wants something. The main island as a whole is its own crossing. It is written up on Miami to Great Exuma by seaplane.
Onward Down the Chain
Same Aircraft
A private seaplane charter Miami to Stocking Island also works as the first leg rather than the whole day. The chain runs north from the harbour for a hundred miles. The famous stops along it, the swimming pigs, the grotto and the cays of the national park, are all up that way rather than here.
The same aircraft carries on to Staniel Cay and the rest of the Exumas, or west to Nassau, Andros and Harbour Island. That is what turns one island into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route.
The full island guide sits on the Stocking Island destination page, the packaged version is the Stocking Island 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 Stocking Island?
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 Stocking Island Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane from Miami to Stocking Island: The Gulf Stream, the Bank and a Harbour Landing
Everything above is the day. What follows is the detail behind it: the crossing itself, the two borders it passes through, the harbour at the far end that makes a water arrival possible and what the words charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas. Each of the five sections below takes one of them in turn.
Seaplane Miami to Stocking Island: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Stocking Island 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. Downtown Miami to the harbour is about 318 statute miles, some 276 nautical, almost every one of them water. The Bahamian declaration goes in from Florida, the aircraft clears at a port of entry before it reaches the harbour and the US return is filed before you leave, which is what sets where you may land coming home. 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. Charter the aircraft and it is yours alone: the crew and the day belong to your party. 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 Stocking Island from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to Stocking Island
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 Stocking Island 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 crossing 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 Stocking Island Seaplane: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Stocking Island crossing
A seaplane from Miami to Stocking Island 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 Stocking Island: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Stocking Island
A private seaplane from Miami to Stocking Island 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 Stocking Island 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. Which one flies your date is decided for the distance 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 Stocking Island: Questions Answered
How long is the flight from Miami to Stocking Island?
About an hour and three quarters in the air. Elizabeth Harbour lies roughly 318 statute miles from downtown Miami, some 276 nautical, almost all of it open water. The exact block time depends on which aircraft flies your date and on the departure point.
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 Stocking Island?
Yes. Stocking 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.
Where does a seaplane land at Stocking Island?
On the water inside Elizabeth Harbour, the sheltered stretch between the island and George Town. The island itself has no airstrip and no road, so there is nothing to land on and nothing to drive.
That is the reason the route exists: a runway arrival in the Exumas puts you on Great Exuma and still needs a car and a boat afterwards, while the floats stop off the beach you came for.
How does customs work on a seaplane flight to Stocking Island?
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry and the island is not one. Great Exuma carries several within a few miles of the anchorage, the international airport and the public dock at George Town among them, so the aircraft clears there first and flies the short last leg afterwards.
Which one it is depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date. It comes with the quote. Both filings are ours: your part is the enquiry.
Can you do Stocking Island as a day trip from Miami?
Yes. The aircraft waiting is what makes it work: out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft at the anchorage rather than turning around, so six hours on the island means six hours. On a crossing of this length the daylight is the constraint rather than the distance, which is why the latest useful departure comes back with the quote. Nothing about the day is shared with anyone.
How late can we fly back from Stocking Island 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 on Great Exuma keeps daytime hours of its own and closes before the sun does.
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 Stocking Island 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.
How much luggage can we take and can we bring rods or dive gear?
Rods, 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.
What happens if the weather stops the Stocking Island 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. Elizabeth Harbour is sheltered, which helps at the arrival end, but the crossing is long and open.
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 in or arrive on Great Exuma and take a boat across?
It depends how long you are staying. The island sits about a mile off George Town and boats cross the harbour in minutes, so on a week ashore the difference is small.
On a single day it is not: a runway arrival adds the drive from the airport and the wait for a boat at both ends of the day, which comes out of the hours you came for. Say which you would rather have and the answer comes back with both.
Can you fly to Stocking Island from Fort Lauderdale or the Florida Keys instead?
Yes. The Exumas are reachable from every departure point in the corridor and the crossing is long enough that the twenty miles between Miami and Fort Lauderdale change very little. 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 Stocking Island 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 anchorage.
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.
Can the seaplane take us on from Stocking Island to another island the same day?
Yes. The harbour sits at the southern end of the Exuma chain and the same aircraft carries on to Staniel Cay, the cays above it, Nassau, Andros or Harbour Island. 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 Stocking Island?
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 Stocking Island day costs.
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