"Toe the Line" by Wendy Walker

[hcbirker]

I was gone all day but finally did the puzzle. SSSolved! Thanks Wendy!

[benchen71]

SSSolved, with help from the constructor herself on the Zoom meeting! Very nice puzzle, Wendy.

[Dow Jones]

SSSolved !! Well done, Wendy.

[Wendy Walker]

Here's the Monday-morning leaderboard. And thanks to the good folks at Crosshare for featuring this SSS!

[TS] Abide
1. Cap'n Rick
2. THC
3. lbray53
4. Meg
5. Cindy Weatherman
6. Boharr
7. MatthewL
8. Whimsy
9. Qmark
10. Tyrpmom
11. Hector
12. Carolyn
13. KayW
14. Bird Lives
15. Woozy
16. KatieDid
17. Cindy Heisler
18. BarbaraK
19. CP Johnson
20. HeadinHome
21. GR
22. Markhr
23. RJY
24. ReB
25. ErgCat
26. Heidi
27. Gutman
28. David Clyde
29. MichaelM
30. BenChen71
31. Dow Jones
32. Schmeel
33. Bob Cruise Director
34. Chris Kochmanski

[ajk]

lol finally got this one, with all the nudges (though only the fourth was new info). Very clever indeed, thanks. Not 100% sure I used the fourth nudge properly, but got there in the end regardless.

[HeadinHome]

I wonder if I did the same thing as @HeadinHome Saw something that suggested a cute answer but was wrong. Then went off on an entirely different tangent. Then circled back to my original observation but applied it correctly this time.

Sounds like what I did… it will be interesting to reveal here what our wrong-but-cute answer/s was/were!

[Wendy Walker]

Several more solvers have chimed in!
35. Maine Marge
36. TJBrenner
37. AJK
38. Al Sisti
39. Dr. Tom
40. Beth A
41. Andeux
42. Rufus T. Firefly
43. Kurt Alert

[Wendy Walker]

Winding down this week's SSS with a few more solvers:
44. Hoover
45. DIS
46. Matt A
47. Sanne
48. Julie Bookman
49. Tane

[Wendy Walker]

The SSS meta answer is RIP CURRENT, which is derived from the letters in the grid that are UNDER the TOs (which are all pronounced TOE, as hinted in the title). Get it? UNDER TOW.
During our Outer Banks vacation, the surf was so rough that there were warnings everywhere about rip currents and what to do if you got caught in one. This NO SWIMMING flag was next to our cottage. Note that half of it has been blown off by the wind, which exceeded 35 mph.

[boharr]

Beware the Under Toad!

[MikeyG]

Aargh, never thought to look under the letters, which seems simple in retrospect. Knew the TOs were involved, but I couldn't pull it out. (And I had a tide puzzle once that I think had to do with looking under the letters - never came to me). Keep up the great work! You've been stumping me a lot, so I'll still be drifting around at sea for a while. Maybe the waves will bring me back to shore soon!