Ocean Exploration

Answer:

SEAENTIFIC REEF SEARCH

Clicking on each of the Google Earth links will take you to various underwater locations, home to a variety of sea creatures. To spot the animals, you can pan, zoom and move to look around (but most will be prominently featured in the foreground).

Location				Screenshot									Animal				Letters
Champion Island West, Ecuador													GALAPAGOS SEA LION				1 = S 7 = I
Crystal Bay, Nusa Penida, Indonesia													MOLA MOLA				3 = A 17 = A
Eastern Terrace, Palmyra Atoll, USA													BLACK TIP REEF SHARK				8 = F 11 = R
Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef													GREEN SEA TURTLE				2 = E 18 = R
Magic Point at Maroubra, Sydney													GREY NURSE SHARK				5 = N 15 = S
Muli Kandu, Maldives													LONGFIN BANNERFISH				14 = F 4 = E
Myrmidon Reef, Great Barrier Reef													BOTTLENOSE DOLPHIN				12 = E 9 = I
Palmyra Atoll, USA													MELON-HEADED WHALE				13 = E 16 = E
Rarotonga, Cook Islands													HUMPBACK WHALE				10 = C 20 = H
The Cod Hole, Great Barrier Reef													POTATO COD				6 = T 19 = C

Filling in the blanks with the animals you find and taking the numbered letters in order, you'll get SEAENTIFIC REEF SEARCH, a pun on "scientific research" and the answer to this puzzle.

Authors' Notes

This was one of the last puzzles we wrote because we originally wanted to make an interactive word association graph where solvers would have to find "Nemo" and friends within various points in the graph (inspired by Google Games and Puzzle Potluck). Unfortunately, the space of words and phrases that have "Nemo" and "Dory" is pretty small and gets contrived quickly.

At some point in our design process, we got the idea to take solvers to various points in the Great Barrier Reef through Google Earth. When we found this oceans tour by Google Earth and Underwater Earth, we knew we had to share this with our solvers!

We hope the simplicity and charm of this puzzle counterbalanced some of our lengthier and more challenging puzzles. :)