Sea Turtle Season in North Myrtle Beach: What Guests Need to Know

Every year from May through October, something quietly remarkable happens on the beaches of North Myrtle Beach. Under the cover of darkness, female loggerhead sea turtles — three feet long and weighing 250 to 350 pounds — crawl out of the Atlantic, dig nests in the sand, and lay roughly 120 ping-pong-ball-sized eggs before returning to the sea.

Forty-five to sixty-five days later, the hatchlings emerge — mostly at night, guided by moonlight toward the ocean. It’s one of the most magical natural events on the Grand Strand, and if you’re visiting during North Myrtle Beach sea turtle nesting season, you have a front-row seat to help protect it.

The Turtles

The primary species nesting on NMB beaches is the loggerhead sea turtle — the most common nesting sea turtle on the Grand Strand. Occasional leatherback, Kemp’s ridley, and green sea turtles also make appearances, though they’re much rarer.

Loggerheads have an average lifespan of about 50 years. The females return to the same general stretch of coastline where they were born to lay their own eggs — a homing instinct that spans decades and thousands of ocean miles.

When It Happens

• Nesting season: May 1 – October 31
• Egg laying: Primarily May through August, mostly at night
• Incubation: 45–65 days
• Hatchlings emerge: Late July through late October, mostly at night

The NMB Sea Turtle Patrol — a volunteer organization authorized by the SC Department of Natural Resources, active since 2010 — walks the beaches every morning during nesting season looking for fresh turtle tracks. When they find a nest, they mark it with signs and rope fencing to protect it.

How You Can Help Protect the Turtles

This is the most important part. Every guest who visits during nesting season can make a real difference:

Lights Out at Night

This is the single most important thing you can do. Artificial lights disorient sea turtle hatchlings. When they emerge from the nest, they navigate toward the brightest light on the horizon — which should be the moon reflecting off the ocean. But porch lights, flashlights, phone screens, and flash photography can pull them inland instead of toward the water.

• Do not use flashlights, phone lights, or camera flash on the beach at night during nesting season.
• Turn off exterior lights at beachfront properties.
• If you’re walking the beach at night, keep it dark. Your eyes will adjust — after ten minutes, you’ll see the moonlight silvering the wave tops, the stars stretching overhead, and the pale sand glowing faintly beneath your feet. It’s a better beach walk than daytime, honestly.

Leave No Trace

• Fill in any holes you dig on the beach. Nesting turtles can get trapped in holes, and hatchlings can fall in and become unable to climb out.
• Remove all beach items by evening. Chairs, umbrellas, toys, and coolers can entangle turtles or block their path.
• No trash on the beach. Turtles mistake plastic bags and balloons for jellyfish — one of their primary food sources.

Respect the Nests and the Turtles

• Do NOT approach nesting sea turtles or hatchlings. Watch from a distance.
• Do NOT touch eggs, nests, or hatchlings. This is a federal crime under the Endangered Species Act — these animals are protected by law.
• If you see tracks or a nesting turtle: Stay back, stay quiet, and report it to the NMB Sea Turtle Patrol at 843-213-9074 (day or night).
• If you find a stranded turtle on the beach: It’s likely sick or injured. Do NOT push it back into the water. Call 843-283-6670 or the SC DNR Hotline at 800-922-5431.

How to Witness a Nest Inventory

Here’s something most visitors don’t know about: nest inventories. After a nest has hatched and the patrol determines that emergence is complete, they excavate the nest to count the hatched and unhatched eggs. It’s a public event — the patrol announces inventories on their Facebook page, and guests and locals gather to watch.

Seeing volunteers kneel in the sand, carefully open a nest, and count the papery white shell fragments while the crowd holds its breath — and then the gasp when a late hatchling, no bigger than a silver dollar, scrambles out of the hole and flippers its way toward the surf. Kids press forward, whispering. Adults tear up. It’s genuinely moving. If your trip overlaps with an inventory (usually late July through October), follow the NMB Sea Turtle Patrol Facebook page for announcements. It’s free, it’s educational, and it’s an experience your family will remember long after the sunburn fades.

Sea Turtle Quick Facts

• Species: Primarily loggerhead; occasional leatherback, Kemp’s ridley, and green
• Size: ~3 feet long, 250–350 lbs
• Eggs per nest: ~120
• Egg size: About the size of a ping-pong ball
• Incubation: 45–65 days
• Lifespan: ~50 years
• Nesting season: May 1 – October 31
• Report activity: 843-213-9074 (NMB Sea Turtle Patrol)
• Stranded turtle: 843-283-6670 or SC DNR 800-922-5431

Teaching Kids About Sea Turtles

A beach trip during nesting season is one of the best opportunities to teach kids about conservation in a way that sticks. Walk the beach in the morning — the sand still cool under bare feet, the air smelling of salt and seaweed from the overnight tide — and look for the roped-off nest markers together. Crouch down and read the signs. Talk about why we fill in our sand holes before we leave. Explain why we turn off the porch light.

When a child understands that the small thing they did — turning off a flashlight, picking up a plastic bag — might help a baby turtle reach the ocean, that lesson stays with them. It’s one of the things that makes a North Myrtle Beach trip more than just a vacation.

Turn Off the Porch Light, Fill in the Sand Holes, and Share the Beach With Something Ancient

Imagine a morning beach walk where you spot the roped-off nest markers in the sand — 120 ping-pong-ball-sized eggs incubating beneath your feet, a 250-pound loggerhead mother somewhere out in the Atlantic, trusting this exact stretch of coastline. That’s May through October at Crescent Beach, a 0.65-mile walk from our 3BR/2BA condo at 601 Hillside Dr N in Ocean Keyes.

Book during nesting season and you won’t just take a beach vacation — you’ll become part of a conservation story your kids will retell for years.

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