In the frame
A sea otter floats on its back on calm grey-blue water, its paws on its chest and strands of brown kelp draped across its belly. Loose bits of kelp drift on the surface around it.
This dive turns the picture into a 4 × 4 slide puzzle: 15 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 otter's face, paws and the kelp across its body.
- Save for last: the calm, smooth water. About 32% 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.
- For the last two rows, work column by column, two tiles at a time.
Colours of the picture
Main colours, measured from the picture's pixels: grey (48%), brown (14%), sky blue (13%) and white (13%).
- grey48%
- brown14%
- sky blue13%
- white13%
- charcoal12%
How deep it goes
Depth 3 of 5 — a steady dive.
Wall dives drop off into bigger boards, where the plain parts of a picture start to slow you down.