Dock

Owner:

Nathan

Solution:

HIGH TIDE

GC Notes:

Everyone is missing the double C in the Braille. A lot of them aren't handling the numbers correctly.

Presentation:

Teams receive a handout. The handout hints that they should look north-northeast, where they see a blinking light.

Walkthrough:

The blinking light is near water level about 2.3 miles away. The Morse message decodes to GIVE JOLLY ROGER TO A PIRATE.

Upon doing so (either drawing a picture of a Jolly Roger or just saying "Jolly Roger"), the pirate on-site will give them a telescope. Looking through the telescope, the lights appear to blink in Braille. (The scopes have circular polarizing filters on them so rotation doesn't matter, but using a mirror or sunglasses with it may get in the way. Regular sunglasses will not see it as they are linearly polarized, not circularly)

The Braille message says OCCURS HERE AT #647 PM. Based on the flavor text, here is "Holly Farms Harbor." Looking it up online, they should find tide tables, which state that HIGH TIDE is 6:47 PM.

Hinting:

If they haven't seen any data yet, make sure they've looked and kept looking in the North, North-east direction for a little while.

The following things are intentional clues in the flavor text: (LINE - Hint)

• The first letters of each line (also capitalized) spell LOOK NNE

• 1 - "Long" = Morse like-timing of dash and dot.

• 2 - "Holly Farms Harbor". Used to decipher riddle about "here today…" in Final step

• 3 - "north-northeast," direction to look

• 3 - "don't go there." Just don't move, there's no need to go anywhere.

• 3 - "time" - minor hint that Braille message contains a time

• 4 - "sights, focused, observe, patterns" - just look and see patterns

• 5 - "bearings, point" (compass terms, and North-Northeast is a compass point)

• 6 - just a reminder to be sure of which way you're looking

• 6 - compass - to confirm direction you're looking

• 7 - "see the light" - blatant description of what you need to do, but hidden in an idiom.

• BLINDNESS - a hint that it should be braille.

The teams will be standing on a gravel beach (runs East/West) on a harbor/bay. The bay extends to the North from where they are standing. The parking lot is south of the beach. They are looking for a blinking light on the right side (East) of the harbor as they look Northward (over the water).

They may think they need to visit/search a dock at the beach where they are, but that is not part of the puzzle.

Some Braille references don't have the "number follows" symbol (The backwards L noted as # in the data). If they think there's an FDG in the message, that's what they're missing.

Data

Part 1 (blinking Morse) Flavor Text:

Long have many a pirate missed out on great reward by ignoring their surroundings.

Out here at holly farms harbor there is great treasure to be found.

Off to the north-northeast you can just make out the dock of the men who guard this treasure, but don’t go there as that would cost you valuable time.

Keep your sights steadily focused on that distant dock in order to observe the patterns of the guards.

Now enjoy your stay, keeping your bearings with this point:

Never trust your compass until you've double-checked its calibration.

Enjoy the view, but don't take too long to see the light.

Part 2 (Braille) once they have the scope:

On a sticker attached to scope:

WARNING! Do not look at the sun as this can cause permanent BLINDNESS.

Blinking Light data

Answers and Partials: