Shark Riddles on the Oregon Coast

We are hard at work shooting our latest Riddle Solvers episode – The Shark Riddle – taking us on a quest to find a tooth from the greatest living fish, much bigger than the rest.  As a backdrop for this story, we traveled to the beautiful and rugged Oregon coast and filmed in places with wicked names, like The Devil’s Punchbowl and Heceta Head, which I think translates to “even worse than The Devil’s Punchbowl.”  As a general rule to filming along any coastline, the locations with the most terrifying names tend to be the most visually stunning.

Part of the challenge to filming in rugged environments is hauling all of the equipment out to the locations, and this film is full of props.  For three straight days, we hauled our riddle solving stand along with a half-ton of gear up and down a flight of 102 stairs.  Then, on a beach surrounded by steep, rocky cliffs, we set up a shark-themed bed while dodging wind and hail storms.  Each time a rainstorm swept through, our crew would grab a large blue tarp and hold it above me in the bed, desperately trying to keep me dry. I definitely had the easy part – it was hilarious watching everyone try to keep the tarp (which acted a lot like a sail) from flying away in the wind.

And one of my favorite days was setting the scene for the crusty, old sea captain (played by yours truly) who sells his “tiny souvenirs and collectibles” along a cavernous cliff made from an old lava flow.  Among his collection of tiny things, this old sea captain just so happens to have a tiny shark tooth.  Could this be the answer to the riddle?

Every day, we had to know exactly what the tide was doing, because at high tide our filming locations were quite literally underwater…several feet underwater.  We also had to know what the weather was doing, because late October and early November is when Mother Nature turns her weather machine from “good” to “bad.”  So after eight days, our crew of ten returned home soggy and sandy and exhausted, but it was all worth it to solve a mysterious riddle found inside an ancient shark journal.  Stay tuned for our newest Riddle Solvers episode: The Shark Riddle.

Listen to the shark lullaby which features in the new episode.