Ducks and Fish - Solution

Puzzle Location: Emeryville Fountains

Next Puzzle: Concrete Block

The key first step in solving this puzzle is to realize that it comes in two parts. Many teams failed to realize that the solution to the previous puzzle (Wordlists) actually led to two distinct locations. Once both parts of the puzzle are acquired, the two grids of letters can be woven into an eight by eight grid:

D H L R A T I G E E N O A A S O O R T N H T O N E A U R C G T F E D S Y E T T A T S D E C T O E T N N E O T E H A R W I N E N Y

The next step in the solution is to recognize that an eight by eight grid is the same size as a chessboard. That, along with the words "NIGHT" and "STORE" hint that what's required is a Knight's Tour of the chessboard. (Doesn't "night store" sound a lot like "knight's tour"? Recall the method of solving the previous puzzle?) A knight's tour is a path through a chessboard that visits every square exactly once. A knight moves in an "L" shape--two squares in any horizontal/vertical direction and one square in a perpendicular direction. There are many different knight's tours; the path of the knight's tour required to solve this puzzle is

60 11 56 7  54 3  42 1  57 8  59 62 31 64 53 4  12 61 10 55 6  41 2 43 9  58 13 32 63 30 5  52 34 17 36 23 40 27 44 29 37 14 33 20 47 22 51 26 18 35 16 39 24 49 28 45 15 38 19 48 21 46 25 50

Determining the correct knight's tour is not easy. As an aid, we provided the series of numbers:

2 2 5 8 6 3 9* 6 2 3 4 2 3* 7* 2*

These numbers refer to the lengths of words in the message spelled out in the knight's tour. An asterix indicates a proper noun. Taking the letters from the visited squares in the order of the knight's tour produces the message:

GO TO THREE THOUSAND TWENTY ONE TEAGARDEN STREET IN THE CITY OF SAN LEANDRO CA

This is the location of Transtime, Inc.