The Crossing
Seaplane from Miami to Tilloo Cay by Private Charter
Tilloo Cay is a long, slender island in the Sea of Abaco with no ferry to it, which is exactly the kind of address a float aircraft was built for. It lies in the Abacos, about 205 statute miles from downtown Miami, just under 178 nautical and almost every one of them open water.
The crossing runs a little over an hour in the air. The aircraft lifts off Biscayne Bay, turns north east and crosses the Gulf Stream with the Bahama Bank opening up green underneath it. Then the floats settle into flat, sheltered water behind a chain of barrier cays, on the lee side of an island most people only ever see from a boat.
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 several seaplane routes out of the city and it leaves from a seaplane base in Miami. The aircraft is a small plane on floats, eight seats and nine in some configurations. It goes to one party at a time, so the crossing is arranged around your morning instead of around a departure board.
Plan Your Tilloo Cay Charter
How It Works
How a Seaplane Miami to Tilloo Cay Actually Works
The Abacos are 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 Tilloo Cay CharterDistance and Time
Two hundred miles of open water, a little over an hour of it in the air
Downtown Miami to Tilloo Cay is roughly 205 statute miles, just under 178 nautical, almost all of it water. On floats that is a little over an hour airborne, plus the taxi out and the water landing at the far end.
The clearance stop on the way in sits inside the same morning, so the figure worth planning against is the day rather than the block time.
The Whole Aircraft
The aircraft is chartered whole, so your party flies out together and comes home together
The aircraft stays with you rather than turning around, so six hours in the Abacos means six hours. The party that flies out is the party that flies home and the hours in between are yours to spend instead of yours to catch.
Water Landing
The floats land in sheltered water, because the cay carries neither a runway nor a ferry
Tilloo Cay has no airstrip and no ferry service. Every runway arrival in this part of the chain lands on Great Abaco and then needs a boat anyway. A seaplane skips that leg: what it asks for is a stretch of protected water and the lagoon behind the cay is exactly that. The mechanics sit in the water landing guide.
Leaving Miami
Leaving Miami for the Abacos 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. There is no desk to hand anything over at on the morning, so a passport number nobody sent is the one thing that moves a departure.
Arriving in the Abacos
Arriving in the Bahamas means clearing at a port of entry first and the cay is not one
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry. Tilloo Cay is not one of them, so the aircraft clears first and flies the last leg afterwards. In the Abacos the customs list carries Marsh Harbour with both a dock and an airport, plus Treasure Cay and Green Turtle Cay further north.
Which of them your day uses depends on the aircraft, the routing and the date and it comes back with the quote rather than being promised here. The last leg from the mainland is minutes: Marsh Harbour lies about six nautical miles from the cay.
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 before the sun does, so in practice it is the desk that fixes your departure rather than the daylight. Both clocks move through the year, so the two together set the last useful departure for your date.
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 Tilloo Cay
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 Tilloo Cay from Miami
Chartering a seaplane is not booking a seat. There are four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Plan Your Tilloo Cay 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 Water
Where a Miami to Tilloo Cay Seaplane Puts You Down
Tilloo Cay is long, narrow and almost entirely undeveloped, with the Sea of Abaco on one side and the Atlantic on the other. The water landing puts you inside the lagoon, which on a cay with no ferry is the difference between arriving and being dropped off.
What follows is what parties actually do with the hours in between.
Plan Your Tilloo Cay CharterTilloo Cut and the Sandbar
Low Water Only
The north end of the cay is the busy end and Tilloo Cut is the reason. It is the narrow pass between the lagoon and the open Atlantic and it separates the cay from the beach at the southern tip of Elbow Cay, which is close enough to be a short run in a tender.
At mid to low water a long white sandbar comes out of the water on that side and it is what most parties come to stand on. At high water it is gone. That makes the tide, rather than the calendar, the thing worth naming when you send the date: the window runs a few hours either side of low.
Fish, turtles and rays work the edge of the cut on the tide and the shelling on the exposed sand is worth the walk. A beach picnic goes here and water toys earn their place on an afternoon spent between the sand and the boat.
Tilloo Cay National Reserve
Protected Since 1990
The south end of the cay is a national reserve, eleven acres of oceanfront shoreline run by the Bahamas National Trust since 1990. It exists because a private family gave the land away on the condition that it be kept natural forever. It is a seabird site above everything else.
White-tailed tropicbirds nest in the eroded rock of the Atlantic shore, along with yellow-crowned night herons and terns. The strip is recognised as an important bird area. There is no trail system and nobody stationed there, which is the whole point of it.
The reserve is a place to look at rather than to land on. It sits on the exposed side where the waves come in off deep water with no reef to slow them, so the boats stay on the lagoon side and the walk happens from there.
Tilloo Pond
Where Boats Lie
Halfway down the cay the shoreline opens into Tilloo Pond, a natural harbour on the lagoon side with a few hundred feet of frontage and room to lie quietly out of the through traffic. It is one of the reasons boats know this cay at all.
Ten minutes south of the cut it is far enough from the crowded anchorages to be silent and close enough that a tender covers the distance without anybody planning the day around it.
If a boat is meeting you here rather than a berth, the aircraft can set the party down alongside instead of at a pier. That is a yacht transfer and a dock pickup covers the other direction.
The Flats Behind the Cay
Shin Deep Water
Behind the cay and through the shallows below it the water goes shin deep over pale sand for miles. Chart depths across much of the Sea of Abaco read in single digits, which is bonefish water and the other half of why anglers come to this end of the chain.
A float aircraft is the reason this works as a day rather than as a trip. Parties book bonefishing and flats access or a full fishing day by seaplane and are standing in the water not much more than an hour after leaving Miami. Rods and gear travel, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.
The Reefs to the South
Snorkel Depth
A short run south of the cay the water becomes the Pelican Cays Land and Sea Park, twenty one hundred acres of it, protected since 1972 and run by the Bahamas National Trust. Coral heads, patch reefs and undersea caves sit in water shallow enough that snorkellers and divers are looking at the same thing from different depths.
Nothing is taken out of it, which is the trade: the fishing happens outside the line and the looking happens inside it. Say when you send the date whether anyone is diving rather than snorkelling. In this part of the Abacos a dive boat and a snorkel boat are not always the same boat and there are not many of either.
No Cars, No Ferry, No Queue
How You Get Around
Nothing about this cay is serviced. There is no ferry to it, so the people who live here move by boat. The houses are private and spread thin along a shoreline that is mostly bush. That is the point of the day rather than a limitation of it.
It is a rare thing to be able to reach an island this quiet and leave it again between breakfast and dark. That is exactly what the aircraft is for. Guests who want a table rather than a beach book a fly and dine day. Anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.
The Lighthouse Across the Water
Minutes North
Straight across the cut and a few miles up the shore stands the red and white striped tower at Hope Town, built in the 1860s and still turned by hand. It burns kerosene and a keeper cranks the weight every couple of hours through the night, which makes it one of the last of its kind anywhere.
It is the obvious half day off the cay and the reason a lot of parties ask for two stops rather than one. The pastel houses under it, the harbour and the ocean beaches on the far side are all within a walk of the dock.
Onward Down the Sea of Abaco
Same Aircraft
A private seaplane charter Miami to Tilloo Cay also works as the first stop rather than the whole day. Because the clearance is done on the way in, the paperwork is finished before the second leg starts.
The same aircraft carries on to Elbow Cay, Man-O-War Cay, Great Guana Cay, Treasure Cay or Marsh Harbour on the mainland. That is what turns one cay into island hopping or a wider Bahamas day. Overnight changes the baggage rather than the route.
The full island guide sits on the Tilloo Cay destination page, the packaged version is the Tilloo Cay getaway day trip, the region is on the Abacos page and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page. Each of them covers what happens once the floats have stopped, which is a different question from the one this page answers.
Ready When You Are
Ready to Book Seaplane Flights from Miami to Tilloo Cay?
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 Tilloo Cay Add-Ons
Anything else you have in mind is arranged with the flight.
In Detail
Seaplane from Miami to Tilloo Cay: 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 rest of the chain and what charter and private actually change about a flight to the Bahamas.
It is written for the reader who has already settled on where the day is going and now wants to know how it holds together from one end to the other.
Seaplane Miami to Tilloo Cay: Flying Low Over the Reef and the Flats
Room enough and a window each on a Tilloo Cay 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 in the Abacos, about 205 statute miles from downtown Miami, just under 178 nautical and almost every one of them open water. Chart depths across much of the Sea of Abaco read in single digits and the tide decides which sandbars are sand and which are sea, so the hour of the day matters more here than the hour of the year. What changes the day is stepping off the float into water that is a few metres deep and clear enough to read, rather than onto a runway on Great Abaco with a boat still to find. 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 Tilloo Cay from Miami: You Decide the Departure Time
Your hour, your names and a seaplane to Tilloo Cay
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 Tilloo Cay 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 Tilloo Cay Seaplane: The Crew Files Both Borders, You Carry a Passport
Passports are all your party carries on a Tilloo Cay crossing
A seaplane from Miami to Tilloo Cay 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 Tilloo Cay: Milestone Days and Bahamas Weekends
A day trip, a weekend or something to celebrate on Tilloo Cay
A private seaplane from Miami to Tilloo Cay 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 Tilloo Cay 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. The aircraft waits rather than turning around for its next departure, so an afternoon that runs long is simply an afternoon that runs long. 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 Tilloo Cay: Questions Answered
Why fly direct to Tilloo Cay instead of landing on the mainland?
Because the cay has no airstrip and no ferry, a runway arrival ends on Great Abaco with a boat still to organise at the far end. A float aircraft carries you the whole way and puts the party down in sheltered water beside the island itself.
The clearance still happens at a port of entry on the way in, so the saving is not the paperwork. It is the hour or two at the end of the morning that a taxi and a boat would otherwise take.
How long is the flight from Miami to Tilloo Cay?
A little over an hour in the air. The cay lies roughly 205 statute miles from downtown Miami, just under 178 nautical, almost all of it open water.
The exact block time depends on the aircraft, the departure point and the port of entry the routing uses 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 Tilloo Cay?
Yes. The Abacos 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.
How does customs work on a seaplane flight to Tilloo Cay?
The Bahamas lets an aircraft arrive only at a designated port of entry and the cay is not one. The customs list for the Abacos carries Marsh Harbour with both a dock and an airport, along with Treasure Cay and Green Turtle Cay further north.
The aircraft clears at one of them and flies the last leg afterwards, which from the mainland is a matter of minutes. Which port your date uses depends on the aircraft, the routing and the day and it comes back with the quote. None of the paperwork is yours: we make both filings.
Can you do Tilloo Cay as a day trip from Miami?
Yes. Out in the morning, back before dark, with the aircraft staying with your party rather than turning around, so six hours in the Abacos 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 else.
How late can we fly back 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 Tilloo Cay 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 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 barrier cays keep the lagoon flat when the ocean side is working, which helps at the far end and changes nothing about the crossing. The call belongs to the operator rather than the guest and you are told before you book how a moved departure is handled.
Is there anywhere to stay on Tilloo Cay?
The cay is residential rather than resort. It is lightly populated, the houses are private, there is no ferry service and residents travel by boat. That is what most parties come for and it is also why a night here is arranged privately rather than booked.
Guests who want a hotel usually stay on one of the neighbouring cays or at Marsh Harbour and fly in for the day. Say which you have in mind and the routing is built around it.
Can you fly to Tilloo Cay from Fort Lauderdale or the Florida Keys instead?
Yes. The Abacos are reachable from every departure point in the corridor and the crossing from Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach is 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 Tilloo Cay 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 for you.
Tell us those and you get one all-in number, with the departure point, the boarding time and the hours on the water 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 to another cay the same day?
Yes. Tilloo sits in the middle of the chain rather than at the end of it and the same aircraft carries on to Elbow Cay, Hope Town, Man-O-War Cay, Great Guana Cay and Marsh Harbour.
Say so when you send the date: a second leg changes the aircraft and the timing. For a yacht or a private dock 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 Tilloo Cay?
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 day costs.
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