The cache is not located at
the posted coordinates.
Use the coordinates from the waypoint listed below (NOT those
listed for the cache) as a starting point for solving the
puzzle.
The puzzle to be solved is a solitaire version of the Battleship
game. There are four solution cells, which must be placed in the
correct order to determine the a.bcd values to add to the origin
point. Here are the details:
In Solitaire Battleship, as in the traditional two-player game,
an armada of ships is hidden within the grid. The armada includes
one battleship four squares long, two cruisers three squares long,
three destroyers two squares long, and four submarines one square
in size. Each ship occupies a number of contiguous squares on the
grid, arranged horizontally or vertically. The ships are placed so
that no ship touches any other ship, not even diagonally.
The goal of the puzzle is to discover where the ships are
located. A grid may start with clues in the form of squares that
have already been solved, showing a submarine (a circle), an end
piece of a ship (rounded on the “end” side, flat on the
other), a middle piece of a ship (a square), or empty water (the
letter “W”). Each row and column has a number (in
bold font) beside it, indicating the number of squares
occupied by ship parts in that row or column.
Once you have located all of the ships, the four cells occupied
by submarines are your solution cells, so note the Row,Column
numbers for each of them. To order the pairs correctly for
determining the a.bcd values to substitute, sort them by the
distance of each cell from the cell in the bottom LEFT corner, in
DESCENDING order of distance (farthest first, nearest last).
(If you're having trouble getting
started, click here for some tips.)
Note that this is not only a puzzle, but a multi-cache. So be
prepared for a little more driving (OR hiking through a campus).
You can check your answers for the puzzle (Stage One location) on
Geochecker.com.
Original contents of the final container include a Matchbox
Rescue Boat for FTF, the Cowabunga! Dune Buggy TB starting out on his
adventure, and a few other odds and ends.
* PLEASE NOTE - Changes to
Stage One info *
The original Stage One container for this
cache has been muggled. It has also been pointed out to me that it
was actually on private property anyway, so the muggling was
probably deserved! Rather than replacing it, I have changed the
cache to use information near the Stage One location to find Stage
Two. Here's how:
From the location of the Stage One coords, walk over to the
business located directly to the north and determine it's street
address. Next, add the four digits of the address together. Then
use the resulting number as an offset for decoding the information
below, with directions to Stage Two. This works in a similar way to
the rot-13 encoding used for cache hints, but will be a "rot-N",
depending on the offset number. For example, if the number was 6,
then A=G, B=H, etc. And the mapping "wraps around" at the end of
the alphabet, so for that example it would be X=D, Y=E,
etc.
Xf vortkcp fev dzelkv fw crkzkluv
jflky wifd yviv, kyve knvekp wvvk nvjk, reu cffb ze kyv crixvjk
kivv. Pfl tre grib aljk kf kyv efiky.
Be sure to check out the OTHER Battleship Grid puzzle by
supergeofish (GC1VDJD), which uses the "Grid" concept with my
blessing, but in a very different way. (I forgot to tell him about
my royalty fee, though!) If you are a hiker, you'll enjoy his. Mine
is more for us "flatlanders".
Congrats to Roktman and djds clan for
CO-FTF! I keep thinking I'm coming up with some tricky puzzles; but
not for some of the "clever cookies" around here!