A Guide to Turtle Tours in St Lucia, Sodwana Bay and Kosi Bay

Every summer, on the beaches of KwaZulu-Natal’s Elephant Coast, one of Africa’s oldest journeys ends exactly where it began. Female leatherback and loggerhead turtles that hatched here decades ago swim thousands of kilometres back to the same stretch of sand to lay their eggs. Weeks later, their hatchlings scramble for the waves.

You can witness it on a guided night tour inside iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site. But here’s what most guides don’t tell you: there isn’t one turtle tour. There are several, run from different towns along a coastline that stretches about 220 km. Choosing the right one depends mostly on where you are sleeping.

Five of the world’s seven sea turtle species swim in South African waters, but only two come ashore here to nest. The leatherback is the giant: the largest living turtle, with a soft, ridged shell, weighing up to around 700 kg and growing over 2 m long, and it can dive deeper than 1,000 m chasing jellyfish. While leatherbacks are found across the world’s oceans, the population that nests on this coast is Critically Endangered. The loggerhead is smaller, with a big head and a reddish-brown shell, and far more common on these beaches.

Seeing either one is a privilege, because both nearly disappeared from this coast. In the early 1960s, Natal Parks Board staff learned that turtles were being killed and eaten on the remote beaches south of Kosi Bay. Their answer was a monitoring and tagging programme, started in the summer of 1963/64 and still running today, one of the longest-running turtle programmes in the world. In 1966 fewer than ten leatherbacks nested here; today there are more than 70 nests a year. Loggerheads have done even better, from under 250 in the early 1960s to around 1,700 nesting each year. Every tour fee helps pay for this research and for the local guides who protect the beaches.

A female hauls herself above the high-tide line, digs a chamber with her back flippers and lays around 100 soft eggs, about the size of ping-pong balls. While she lays she falls into a trance-like state, which is when your guide will bring you closer. She covers the nest, often digs a decoy nest to fool predators, and heads back to sea. She will come back to nest several times in one season, roughly every ten days.

About two months later the hatchlings dig out together, wait just below the surface until the sand cools after dark, then race for the brightest horizon, which should be the sea. Jackals, honey badgers and ghost crabs patrol the dunes for them, and only one or two in every thousand will survive to adulthood. Those that make it drift south on the Agulhas Current, some as far as the Atlantic. The males never come ashore again; the females return to this same coast years later to start the cycle over.

Even before they hatch, the sand shapes their lives: its temperature decides whether a hatchling is male or female, with warmer nests producing more females.

The turtles nest all along this coast, but tours run from three bases, each with its own licensed operator, style and timings. Pick the one closest to where you’re staying, then make the most of the days around it.

If you’re staying in St Lucia, this is the tour for you. It is the longest and most varied of the three. You drive through the Eastern Shores of iSimangaliso at dusk on an open vehicle, watching for hippo, buffalo and, with luck, leopard. Then you search the beach north of Cape Vidal for nesting turtles, with a light dinner on the sand.

While in the area: spend a morning on a hippo and crocodile cruise on the St Lucia estuary, and add a Big Five day in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, under an hour away.

Sodwana Bay is famous for diving, but on summer evenings its 16 km beach is turtle territory too. Tours here are shorter beach drives in an open vehicle, with short walks to the nests. That makes Sodwana a good choice for families and guests who’d rather not walk far.

While in the area: snorkel or dive the reefs by day, where turtles are seen in the water all year round, then look for them on the beach at night.

The beaches around Bhanga Nek near Kosi Bay see more nesting turtles than anywhere else in the country. No vehicles are allowed on the Kosi beaches, so after a short 4×4 transfer everything is on foot, with experienced community turtle guides, often walking several kilometres along a dark, empty beach. It’s raw and remote, and the chances of a sighting are the highest on the coast. Many of the guides come from the local Thonga community, and the tours are an important source of income for the villages along this coast.

While in the area: explore the Kosi Bay lake system by boat or canoe and see the traditional fish traps the Thonga community has built in the estuary for generations.

The season runs from November to March. From November to December you are most likely to see females nesting. From mid-January the focus shifts to hatchlings. Tours run only around low tide, so start times may vary and are confirmed the day before. We advise you book as early as you can. Every operator works under a park concession with strict group limits, and December and school-holiday nights fill up first.

You can’t walk these beaches at night during the season without an official guide, and the rules below are there to protect the turtles.