In the frame
Spotted garden eels stand up out of their burrows in a wide stretch of pale sand, all leaning the same way. Deep blue water with a rippled surface fills the top half.
This dive turns the picture into a 3 × 3 slide puzzle: 8 tiles and one empty space. The shuffle is fixed, so everyone starts from the same board, and it is always solvable.
Dive plan
- Start with the easy part: the nearest eels and their dark spots.
- Save for last: the pale sand and the deep blue water. About 25% of the frame has little detail, mostly in the top third, and those pieces look alike.
- Finish the top row first, then the left column; the puzzle shrinks to a smaller board each time.
- Switch on the numbers if two tiles look alike — they show where each tile belongs.
- Look-alike tiles are where the numbers help most: plain water or sand gives few clues about order.
- A 3 × 3 board is small enough to solve by feel; try to finish in as few moves as you can.
Colours of the picture
Main colours, measured from the picture's pixels: sand (32%), ocean blue (30%), cream (12%) and deep blue (11%).
- sand32%
- ocean blue30%
- cream12%
- deep blue11%
- sky blue10%
- teal6%
How deep it goes
Depth 1 of 5 — a calm paddle.
Snorkel dives are the shallow end of the logbook: small boards with pieces big enough to read at a glance.