In my previous post Seaside Oregon-The Crab Pot I sneaked in a mention of the Seven little clues. Shall we find out whether or not we solved the clues? And if we did what was the big surprise at end of it?

7 clues hunt (The beginning)

It all started when Miss. V laid her eyes on a neatly rolled paper stuffed in the cavity of one the oars on the wall. Inquisitive as ever, her fingers found their way to the cavity retrieving the roll to reveal a post-it!

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The post it read“Find the next clue, you musn’t refrain, look under the sea creature that looks most like a brain” with the number “3” scribbled on top right corner. Confused she rushed to show it to S who was busy on his laptop.

He took one look at the post-it and blurted the words “It’s a CLUE”!!. That was the beginning of the new adventure that Miss. V had stumbled upon unknowingly.

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I was peacefully asleep in the room next door oblivious to all that was happening outside in the living room. I opened my eyes an hour later to a hubbub of sounds and Ginger frantically barking . Confused I rubbed open my eyes and found black twinkling eyes staring back at me. Then I heard the sweet voice “Mama, we found clues, we are looking for the last one! Akka found it in the oar, we want a basket” or something to that tune.

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“Slow down, what happened?” I enquired still half asleep. Just then S and V came in and gave me the rushed version of the story. That while I slept, they had been busy looking for clues, they had found clues 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

The clue number 7 read “The next one is so hard, it might put you in a casket. But don’t let that get you all tied up in the ropes! Just look for the suspended basket”

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Still processing the whole thing, I just blurted out “Did you check the basket in the bathroom? There is one hanging from the window.” The girls rushed to the only bathroom-laundry-room in the cottage and then I heard the excited screams “Papa, come quick!!”.

Sure enough Papa rushed (he had been as invested in solving these clues as much as them) excitedly to grab that tiny basket. Lo and behold the basket held the last piece of the puzzle. My only contribution and it was the big reveal, boy was I smiling ear to ear or what?

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Over hot cup of tea Miss V (with many interruptions from N who of late wants to be part of every conversation) regaled me with the details of seven little clues. How she had found the clue 3 hidden in the oar and how while I blissfully slept in the room nextdoor, they solved them which finally led them to the last piece of the puzzle- the one that they found in the tiny basket! .

The note from the basket read “Well done! Fill in the blanks and give me a holler. Include a photo of this note and I’ll send some dollars”.

7 clues hunt (The middle)

How often does this happen in a lifetime that you stumble upon something unexpected that excites you and brings out the child in you? Both S and I were as excited as much as the kids!

Coming back to the puzzle on hand, every clue that we found carried three letters of an email id. With each clue we inched closer to a complete mail id.

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If you noticed, I haven’t mentioned clue 1 and clue 2, well because we hadn’t found them yet. With 6 letters missing, we still had 15 letters of the mail id.

I was quick to assume that it was the hosts who had arranged this fun clue hunt for their guests-namely us.

I suggested that S send an sms to our host “Thank you for the fun clue hunt, we loved it.Here is a Holler” just to let them know that we had a great time. He was quick to dismiss me and reminded me the last clue asked us to send out an holler to an email id.

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Sitting down, I wrote down the letters _ _ _ _ _ _xxxxxxxx@gmail.com. (x were actual letters). Even though he dismissed my idea to send the sms, my assumption had taken root in S’s mind too. And with that assumption we guessed the first 6 letters that would rhyme with crabs 😜😂.

7 clues hunt (the missing clues)

That day we didn’t receive any acknowledgement from the email id. We spent remaining part of the day as mentioned in the previous post binge watching Baking Impossible . While I blogged about Ginger.

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What kind of guest are you? How do I mean ? Di you leave feedback/share your thoughts on their personal feedback journal?

I am that guest who takes the time to sit down and give feedback. I love writing (if you haven’t guessed already 😜) and the Piscean in me won’t rest till I leave a thank you note.

So why did I ask you this ? Well on the morning of 27th December, I took out the feedback journal to write a review. As always before writing one I read through other guests experiences. I flipped through couple of pages. The last but one page caught my eye, there was this little post it!

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I hurriedly read through the note not giving it much thought. And flipped over to the next page to find another post with the word “CLUE” scribbled on it. I beckoned S and the girls and together we re-read the post it !!

All this while we assumed it had been arranged by the hosts. In reality it was a guest just like us who had set these seven clues!!

Boy o Boy I mean how do you even explain this?

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Of course we took the post it out to find our first clue! The first three letters of the email id. It was nowhere close to the email id we had sent the holler too 😂😜. Our first clue led us to the DVD collection and hidden underneath the disc was the clue number 2.

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The End

We had completed the mission of finding the Seven Clues! Promptly, I sent out an email along with picture of the note. We thanked him for the fun clue hunt and appreciating the effort he had put in. The subject line read “Holler from The Crab Pot“.

An hour later there was an email from our stranger. He sounded thrilled that we had solved his 7 clues hunt. He went on to tell us that he leaves a trail of clues in every airbnb he visits. He has been doing this for years now and we were the first ones to find and solve his puzzles!!

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Tell me you aren’t as dumbfounded as we were when we learnt of this!! In our email exchange, he politely requested our mailing address to send in the Dollars. S responded by requesting to just send a card for the girls and nothing else.

The next day we left The Crab Pot,taking with us the memories of a wonderful vacation. And a once-in-a lifetime experience.

The surprise

On 3rd January we received a package from amazon. Both S and I didn’t pay much attention to the package until later that day.

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That afternoon when I took the package to open it, I noticed the name on the label it read “ S Crabpot Sharma ” . I gasped and broke into a loud laugh for I immediately knew who had sent it!

The package had a box Cryptex Da Vinci Code Mini Cryptex Lock Puzzle Boxes with Hidden Compartments with a note!

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We went to Seaside for a simple beachside vacation. Not hoping much however the seven little clues made it a memorable one.

And that is how 2022 welcomed us this year, with a pleasant surprise from a stranger.

“Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us”. Boris Pasternak