Small Plane Flights from Miami to Cat Cay

The strip lies across the northern island with water at both ends and asphalt in between. From the air it looks improbably short and from the seat it is an ordinary landing, because this is the size of aircraft the field was made for.

Customs and immigration are there rather than somewhere along the way: the Bahamian customs authority lists Cat Cay among its ports of entry, so you clear where you land. For a crossing this short that is the difference between one hop and two.

Expect the formalities to take minutes rather than an hour. The crew has filed everything before departure. Say at the enquiry if anyone is travelling on a passport other than a United States one, because that is the case worth flagging before the day rather than at the counter.

Nothing here is far from anything else. The islands are small enough that the walk from the aircraft to a dock is measured in minutes rather than in miles, and a cart covers the rest. That is the practical difference between this and a bigger island: there is no drive, no queue and no second leg to arrange once the wheels stop.

If a boat is meeting you, it is meeting you almost where you land. A cart waiting on arrival and ground transport on the Florida side are both arranged with the flight rather than on the day, and anything else you want set up before you land goes on the same quote through custom requests.

The chain runs north from the Cat Cays to Gun Cay, which carries a lighthouse that has stood on the point since the eighteen thirties, and then on to Bimini beyond it.

From the air it is one continuous line of pale sand with deep water on the ocean side and the bank on the other, and it is the last thing you see before the wheels come down. On the way home it is the first.

The shallow bight at the northern end of Gun Cay is the beach where the rays come in shin deep over pale sand, and it sits a few minutes from the strip by boat. It is the best known stop in this little group of cays and it is reached from the water rather than from the runway, so it is a boat morning rather than a walk.

Guests who would rather set down beside it fly the same route by seaplane instead. We quote both against each other rather than selling one, because which is right depends on the date, the water and what the party is carrying.

Bimini is the next island up the chain, about ten miles north, and it is the answer when the Cat Cays are closed to you. It has its own paved runway, its own border desk and no invitation to arrange.

It is also the busier of the two by a wide margin: hotels, marinas, bars along one road, and a channel between its own two islands. Where the cays are quiet because almost nobody is allowed on them, Bimini is quiet only by Florida standards.

We fly it as its own route from Miami and the island itself is covered on the Bimini destination page. Guests who want a table booked before they land add a fly and dine day and anything outside the usual list goes to custom requests.

The cays sit right on the edge of the Gulf Stream, so the colour changes so abruptly here. Deep ocean on one side of the islands and a few feet of sand on the other, with the line between them plainly visible from the air on a clear morning.

That edge is the reason boats have come here for a century, and it is the reason the last few minutes of the flight look the way they do. What happens on the water once you are down is the island's subject rather than the flight's and the Cat Cay destination page covers it.

This is the part of the day a runway changes most. Load on a small aircraft is a weight question rather than a bag count and a wheeled airframe has more of it to give than floats do. Golf clubs, dive tanks, rods, a cooler for the boat, a case of something for the house: all of it travels, within the payload for the aircraft on the day.

Say what is coming at the enquiry rather than at the ramp and see the baggage guidance for how the trade between passengers and weight actually works. Anything larger than luggage is a different service on the same runway and that is island logistics rather than a charter with extra bags.

The Cat Cays work as the first leg rather than the whole day, and clearing in here is what makes that easy: once you are through the desk, every leg after it is domestic. The same airframe 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. Where the next island has no strip of its own, that leg switches aircraft rather than cancelling the plan. The packaged version of a single day is the Cat Cay getaway day trip and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.