Last night’s King Tide wreaked havoc on many of our nests with the strong 15+ mph winds out of the east. It pushed the water way up onto the dunes up and down the beach. Tonight is the full moon and the King tide, at 8:26 p.m., is another 6.8′ with winds out of the ENE 8-12 mph. This ends tomorrow night as the tides start going back down.
We have had to relocate more nests than usual and it is good we did! We may need to relocate even higher in the future since the King tide line was well above the spring tide line (check photos). As long as nests are on a good slant, the water drains off. We worry about flat nests where the ocean water sits on them too long. This can effect the water table and suffocate the eggs/hatchlings.
North: Last night, Buffie & Mark walked last night just after high tide and said the Prince George river was flowing:( They sent photos of nests being washed over. Fortunately, several were safe. This morning Beth reported wash overs on 6 nests.
Middle: Pat St. reported wash overs on 4 nests.
Hobcaw: A brave (or desperate) turtle braved the furious ocean and crawled way up on the pushed up dune in Ocean Green at low tide. Steven continued to walk and reported wash overs on 12 nests. Returning to the crawl, he quickly determined that it was a nest and left it natural HOB16.. We will keep an eye on it since we lost one in that area during H. Isaias. Great effort today, Steven!
DEB 22 HOB 16 SCUTE 94 SC 2613
