Fort Ebey State Park

I booked a site at Fort Ebey State Park purely for its proximity to an off-leash dog beach. Double Bluff Beach and Off-Leash Dog Area is the closest off-leach dog beach to us – unfortunately it’s located on Whidbey Island, which is a bit of a trek. So I decided to book a campsite on Whidbey for a weekend and give the dogs a bit of a treat. During this trip we had Ranger and Grizzly, of course, but we also had one of our foster dogs with us, Blue.

It’s a gorgeous area with richly wooded trails, amazing ocean views, and beaches. The campsite is a pretty standard state park campsite – sites are close together but the area is kept clean and very nice and you have every amenity you need. There are some old bunkers around the campsite – you pass by a few of them on the trails. They weren’t that exciting to me but I’m sure other people are into that sort of thing. I had to carry Blue because being old and blind makes him really slow:

Between the campsite and the off-leash dog beach is a little town called Coupeville. Super cute, we didn’t spend much time there but stopped for lunch at Rocket Taco which has great outdoor seating behind the restaurant (perfect for people with three dogs in tow!).

We had a great time and the food was great. There’s also an ice cream shop next door we were too full to try but looked amazing.

After lunch we headed out to Double Bluff Beach & Off-Leash Area to check out the dog beach. We often take trips down to Cannon Beach, Oregon for off-leash dog beach fun but were hoping to find one closer to home that we could visit more frequently.

This was not that beach.

First off, the parking lot is very small and was completely full when we got there so we had to park behind a long line of cars that had parked off the side of the road. Not ideal. After the long walk from the car along a road (not super safe) we finally reached the beach – but not the dog beach. So, dogs on leash, we had to walk further down the beach to the official off-leash area. Finally we got there – but the beach is riddled with broken shells and things making me nervous for our dogs’ paws. The water was filled with thick green plant life, kinda gross, honestly, and the dogs didn’t spend much time in it. I certainly wasn’t going in.

So we found a nice spot in the shade and sat down to enjoy the beach and the ocean views.

Our dogs were off-leash but we kept our foster dog, Blue, on leash for his safety. Not only is he not our dog, he’s blind. So we brought our super long leash for him so he could explore around without being in danger. While he can’t see (proven many times by walking straight into walls) he did seem to enjoy facing the ocean:

While we were sitting there a lady approached us and asked us if this was an off-leash dog beach. We said yes. She then went into a tirade about how someone’s dog jumped on her and the owner said this was an off-leash dog beach but she didn’t believe her blah blah blah…pretty awkward. We held our tongues out of politeness but this sort of attitude drives me nuts. There are SO FEW places dogs are allowed to be off-leash, and even fewer BEACHES they are allowed off-leash. If you don’t like dogs don’t go to that area. There are a ton of other non-dog friendly beaches to enjoy. Leave us this tiny strip, please!

This was a bittersweet trip for me as it was our last weekend with Blue. He was adopted and due to be picked up by his new owner on Monday. We were happy to give him a fun send off with a trip to the beach, a hike, and cuddle time in bed with us in the trailer.

Our last night there we decided to check out Captain Whidbey – a hotel/restaurant really close to the campground. We enjoyed dinner at sunset on their deck by the water. It was really lovely, I highly recommend it. The food was great, too – I had an amazing grilled peach burrata salad (seasonal dish, maybe they will offer it again next summer?) that was so good I recreated it at home when we got back. Delicious.

Overall it was a really nice trip, even if the dog beach was a little disappointing.