I stumbled upon Cama Beach through the Washington state park website. While searching for cabin and yurt availability, I noticed that Cama Beach was a separated option, and curiously I looked into this. Cama Beach opened in the 1930s as a family fishing resort and has since offered unique waterfront cabins. Despite the wild popularity, I managed to snag a last-minute cancellation.

Friday, July 17, 2020

A short 1-hour drive from Seattle placed us on Cama Beach. We got the best cabin there —the first one starting the row (#1), which gave us more privacy than others. After a quick dinner, we walked along the rocky shore while enjoying the sunset over the Saratoga Passage, Whidbey Island, and the Olympic Mountains.

Chi pushed me to the communal fire pit after it got dark. There was only one person there and we started a casual conversation about our stay. He told us to try crabbing and that the boat center will have everything you need. We easily adopted that idea for tomorrow.

Saturday, July 18, 2020

We started our morning with takeout breakfasts from Cama Beach Cafe. We then walked to The Center for Wooden Boats and got information on our crabbing adventure. It was pretty straight-forward —get a license online, drop a trap, and pick it up in a few hours. The tricky part was getting limited boats to do it. We decided to kayak out to drop the trap and later rent a rowboat to pick it up.

While we waited for a kayak, we got a one-day shellfishing license online. As the morning went by, more red-white buoys to indicate crab traps were bouncing in the waters. At around 1 pm, we finally got our kayak to lower the trap with raw turkey bait.

After that, we ate lunch outside our cabin and spent the afternoon relaxing by the water. At 4:30 pm, it was time to rent a rowboat and grab our trap. The rowboat was spacious for sorting bounty but very tiring to row. With the abundance of traps, we looked at two traps before finding ours. We slowly pulled out the trap and Chi counted in excitement what we caught. “1-2-3…” he screamed. We caught 7 Dungeness crabs total but only one male (it is not legal to eat females). But at least we caught one male that met the minimum size. To compare, another couple came back with 15 crabs, but they were all females!

We were not prepared to kill and cook this crab but the folks at the boat center were kind enough to set up a boiling pot for us. We then sat watching the sunset, eating fresh crab. It was a perfect summer day.

Sunday, July 19, 2020

We had breakfast again at Cama Beach Cafe but this time, the ham and cheese scone was notable. We lugged our bags up the steep hill to our car and then hiked to Camano Island State Park. I was expecting a short 3-miles flat hike but we must have clocked close to 5-miles with some incline. During our hike to the beach, I didn’t expect to see both the Olympics Mountains and Rainer in one view. It was pretty remarkable.

On our way home, we grabbed fish and chips to eat at a local park. It was a maximum chill weekend.

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Cama Beach is a fantastic short weekend jaunt —it’s convenient, family-oriented, rustic yet comfortable, and very affordable. Despite the short drive, the views and unique lodging felt like a beach holiday far from home.