Who's Leading This Mad Adventure?
The Captain, Mo, and the first mate, Alan, are both geologists who have worked on mining projects from north of the Arctic Circle to South of the Otago Peninsula. We have watched camels being born in the Western Desert of Mongolia and stood astride the spine of the Andes, with one boot in the waters that feed the Atlantic and the other in the waters that feed the Pacific. We get around in the mining world.
Mo's claim to fame is having broken the lottery. He also broke his leg in a motorcycle accident in West Africa. At that time the doctors in northern Nigeria discussed amputating his leg above the knee ... but he got to keep his leg and did not become a peg-legged pirate.
Alan's claim to fame is captaining the Westmeath Shamrocks to the All-Irish Finals ... and, a few years later, getting his bell rung playing professional Gaelic Football in the United States.
With the hunt needing an all-hands-on-deck approach, Mo and Alan are adding artificial intelligence to the cutlasses and muskets in their weaponry. The robot "Blimey" embodies decades of experience in machine learning, pattern recognition and forensic proof of document fraud. We're well aware of the pitfalls of AI ... we've watched "The Terminator" ... and will be able to keep "Blimey" in check, using him as a supplement to native human intelligence.
Who's Signing On As Deck-hands?
Everyone is welcome, young and old. We need puzzle-solvers, so it doesn't matter if you prefer the Great Indoors to the Great Outdoors. Even if you don't think you can suss clues out of rhyming couplets, we've already got a growing list of maybe-clues that might have come out of the over-active imagination of an over-caffeinated mind. For example, is the stand of birch trees sketched beside the big poem meant to look like Africa? We'd like to put that to a vote. The more the merrier.
We'll also need hikers, rock-kickers and back-packers who can get out to the field, and we'll need field crews in every corner of the country. It's quite possible that the hunt has been designed so that every province and territory gets one prize ... 13 stanzas, 13 prizes in 13 months. If that's the case, we will need mateys everywhere.
To sign up, go to the "Mateys" tab up top and tell us how you want to help, where and when.