"A Sail of Two Cities" - June 18, 2021

[BrennerTJ]

Ashore after a rocky ride for the last hurrah.

[John77]

Still on the boat, stubbornly foregoing asking for nudges, and I'm going to have a drink anyway.
Pretty sure I'm looking for the last step in the series and will likely kick myself when I look at the solution tomorrow.

Cheers.

[Bob cruise director]

Our final count is 30 on the ship and 121 on the shore.

The ship's party increased by
joe
TeaJenny
auee89
zacmoretz and Aurt Norma
Ann
John77

While the land partiers expanded by
tigerfly222
rolias
JAQT
NDStegs
jimbo1
YoungestCopperRiver
Mister Squawk
rosiegirl
mlvilv
HunterX
CPJohnson
chad8484
JaneGummy
Flying_Burrito
KscX
JeanneC
b4alltime
BrennerTJ
Prozach

And for those concerned about the number of nudge requests and nudges, the vast majority of them will not be posting to the WSJ.

[eagle1279]

I am on land thanks to a great nudge from our Cruise Director. (I will not be submitting because I had the first few steps but never would have closed the gap without his help.)

No nudge "rules" please -- I retired so I would not have to think about the Administrative Procedures Act or other such nonsense...

[mikeB]

Still trying to figure out what close means in this world. Once you get very close to a “solution”, right or wrong, you start believing you’re there, when actually you’re nowhere. (Consternation bias.) It looks like a beach, but it’s actually quicksand. It almost seems better to be completely lost on a ship at sea than to be in a rabbit hole that smells and feels like beach sand. This is a great meta – can’t wait to see what the answer is. Congrats to all the folks on the real beach.

[ricky]

I have what I think are all the pieces... and the letters spell... ???

I am going to be annoyed if my brain can't deliver for me on this one.

[woozy]

@270

Don't know.

In this case there is something *has* to be part of it. And those lead to things that *must* be the bridge. And you think of *how*. ... and utterly nothing gets you anything.

In this case I *know* I am close but.. I got nothing. I gotta say it's a weird brick wall. An hour and a half to go. Will accept any nudge.

[TeaJenny]

I'm ashore. I'm just not sure which shore I'm actually on. I submitted my best guess. We shall see.

It was the best of puzzles, it was the worst of puzzles...

[Hidden in 3D]

I am hopelessly LOST AT SEA. Just can't seem to get the final step and it's time to call it a weekend.

[Tripod]

Adrift…

[JennyByrd]

Like many of you, I think I’m at the 90% mark, with 2 possible hail Mary’s to choose from before I turn out the light on this puzzle. Annoyed that I can’t get the ‘aha’ - and out of time. Happy belated Father’s Day to all the dads in this group. Hope it was special for all of you.

[femullen]

Ashore on an empty beach. I.e., just tossed the Hail Mary.

[TheCatt]

We're on the boat, didn't have a lot of time to ponder it with family activities, but not sure it would have made a difference. Thought we had the right path, but couldn't make it go to an answer.

On the real beach, but stuck on the ship this week.

[escapeartist]

Like the above post, I saw a path but just couldn't make it work.

Watched the finish of the US Open with Isaac at the bar.

[OGuyDave]

Done (Thu), and done (just now, with just minutes to spare).

The final hop came to me as I jumped into bed, and decided one more look at the puzzle was far more interesting than watching my special other's choice of "Renovation Island" on the tube.

Two roadblocks: one incorrect letter in the grid, and a bad guess at one item. Some of you can figure out both of them, right?

Great puzzle. Happy to get this one.

TFTXWD

[Joe Ross]

[Joe Ross]

Identical final step as last week's MGWCC #680:




Google Earth has a nice circle drawing tool that worked perfectly for this contest. Select the tool, select its center (one of the cities), enlarge until the radius is the length of the miles between cities. The line arcing through Alaska, Greenland, Britain, France, & Africa is the circle centered in Lima, Peru, with a circumference of 6,329 miles.

[Bird Lives]

[TeaJenny]

Ho-lee sh*t, I got it right!

I totally missed the final step and just guessed WATER because there were 5 bodies of water separating/connecting the 10 cities. Wow.

[Al Sisti]

Ah, well done, solvers. I wasn't one of them even though I had the five bodies of water. And yes, living halfway between Utica and Rome should have given me an edge, but it didn't. The closest I came to anything was seeing two two-word clues that started with the initials of those bodies: 32A "Lyrical Muse" and 32D "Early Computer."