Camping at Waquoit State Park (Washburn Island)

Just thought I would expand a little on what Cathy wrote about our camping trip and include a few pictures.  We camped at Waquoit State Park on Washburn Island in Falmouth, MA — campsite 6 on the map to the right. The only way to get to the island is by your own boat; they don’t offer a ferry service. The island itself is just a series of camp sites, two outhouses, hiking trails, and beaches. So, you have to bring everything with you, including water. This was a nice step forward for us in camping, because up until now we’ve had access to freshwater, a bathroom, and our car when we’ve gone somewhere. This felt a lot more like what I think of as “real” camping.

On Friday, we arrived at the boat launch just after lunch, packed up our kayak, and launched for a nice 45 minute paddle to the camping area on the island.

Our camp site was up on a hill that overlooked a small beach on Waquoit Bay. Here are some shots of the site, the beach, and the view we had from it.

As you can see, it was beautiful there. The beach was great for swimming (though Evan did get a minor jellyfish sting), and we ate our dinner sitting on the steps looking out over the water. While we sat there, several osprey flew overhead fishing for their dinner. I counted at least 8, but some of them were probably the same bird. Two or three of them flew overhead with sizable fish in their talons.

Hiking on the island was a a lot of fun. We had planned on doing some geocaching while we were there, but the GPS unfortunately had dead batteries in it. But that didn’t stop us from exploring. The main trail brought us to a saltwater pond (Tim’s Pond), to a beach along a smaller, calmer bay on the other side of the island (called Eel Pond, I think), and ended down on the Vineyard Sound.

There was plenty of evidence of wildlife on the island. We found raccoon tracks on the beach. Apart from the osprey, there were plenty of great birds: warblers flitting around in the trees in the morning at our campsite, a swan flew overhead at one point, we saw a loon out in the bay, and oyster catchers on the Vineyard Sound beach. And in a tide pool on our way back we discovered several small hermit crabs crawling amongst the snails.

At night, we had dinner (chili cooked on a camp stove), played cards, and did a little star gazing before turning in. And we ended up staying on the island doing some more exploring the next day until about noon, before paddling back to the car. All in all, this was a really great trip, and I’m already thinking about trying to get back there again!

There are a few more pictures of it on our photo site. Feel free to hop on over and take a look at them alongside pictures of other things we’ve been doing! (The ones with Evan in them will not appear unless you log into the site. If you don’t know how, just let me know and I’ll send you a username and password.)