Center Island, WA

Location Overview
Center Island Airport (78WA) sits on Center Island, a small, privately-owned island in San Juan County, Washington, wedged in the channel between Lopez Island and Decatur Island. The island itself is a privately owned, roughly 180-acre heart-shaped island divided into half-acre lots, and the airstrip is one of the few ways to reach it other than boat or water taxi. The runway is oriented roughly north-south at 1,600 by 100 feet with a turf-gravel surface and low-intensity edge lighting, sitting at a field elevation of about 115 feet.

Camping & Recreation
There's no public camping on Center Island — it's a private residential association, not a public park or recreation site, so overnight stays generally require a connection to a property owner or a rental within the community. That said, the island itself is set up for a relaxed, low-key getaway: it has two deep-water docks, a clubhouse with restrooms, a shower, laundry, a fully-equipped kitchen, WiFi, and full-time caretakers, and its narrow lanes are reserved for golf carts, with wooded trails for walking. The association also maintains a boat storage area, a shed, and roughly 2.8 miles of gravel roads along with a reverse-osmosis water system, and residents often bring kayaks to explore the surrounding waterways of the inland San Juans.

Notes & Warnings
This is a private-use airstrip, and pilots need permission before landing — prior permission is required, and training operations are prohibited. There's no control tower or published instrument approach, so it's VFR-only in practice, and pilots should coordinate clearance through Seattle Center if needed. The runway's short length and turf-gravel surface call for caution, and trees are close on both ends — roughly 50-foot trees begin about 100 feet from the runway on the Runway 17 approach, while on the Runway 35 side, 100-foot trees start just 50 feet out. Traffic patterns are non-standard by direction — left traffic for Runway 17 and right traffic for Runway 35. No fuel or FBO services are available on-site, so pilots need to plan fuel stops elsewhere.

History Center
Island's airstrip dates to the late 1970s — FAA records show it was activated in November 1978 — around the time the island was being developed as a private recreational community. The island was subdivided into small residential lots under the umbrella of the Center Island Association, which took on responsibility for shared infrastructure: the docks, the airstrip, the internal gravel road network, and even the water system. Because the island has no bridge or ferry connection, the airstrip (alongside the community's boat docks) became one of the two practical lifelines for property owners, supplementing water-taxi and private-boat access. It remains a small, member-oriented facility today rather than a public airport, reflecting the island's continued identity as a tight-knit private enclave within the San Juan Islands.