In the frame
A large grey manatee grazes head-down on a green seagrass bed, its wrinkled back marked by ripples of sunlight. Its broad paddle tail reaches the right edge, and a few small fish swim beneath 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 manatee's head and wrinkled back.
- Save for last: the clear water. About 21% 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.
- The picture is busy enough that neighbouring tiles can usually be told apart without numbers.
- 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: kelp green (34%), slate grey (23%), sea green (17%) and grey (14%).
- kelp green34%
- slate grey23%
- sea green17%
- grey14%
- 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.