A Nest Laid in an Amazing Spot

Mary Pringle
Jul 11
1 min read

Nest #32: Our turtles continue to lay eggs right where the renourishment project at the north end of the Isle of Palms is setting up. Today's loggerhead managed to cross a line of partially buried sandbags and scale a VERY steep dune along the 18th fairway of the Links golf course near Ocean Club Villas in Wild Dunes and lay 126 eggs. Penny Gorby and Shree Beverly were on patrol for the Turtle Team and first found this nest before seeing more tracks at Summer Dunes Lane a little farther south on the beach. That one was false crawl #39 where a turtle with tracks that also measured 23" between claw marks bumped into old sand fencing and other debris on the beach before giving up and crawling back to the ocean without digging a nest. Maybe it was the same turtle in labor who later laid Nest 32? Since SCDNR requires that we remove all nests that will be destroyed by sand pumping which begins this week, the eggs were safely relocated to a spot near 31st Avenue in the center part of the island.