Without giving away too much on how we operate, we got to the hunt site early and had the two possible answers to the flag puzzle and the "14" possible answer to the mermaid puzzle before noon. We decided that the bayside view of the flags was correct, because the map showed the flags readable from that direction (it turns out the other answer was correct, which Dave clarified at 3PM). 

The "14" answer to the mermaid puzzle of course was only an educated guess, we had to wait until the puzzle site opened to confirm it. We were done with the puzzles in less than 90 minutes, leaving about that much time for clue analysis (In the Bum Hunt, were able to decode "Booger" beforehand ). 

When the final clue was read, our team had accidentally gotten split up, because we could not hear Dave from where we were. This actually helped later. Another team member asked me if Sunday was considered the first day of the week, and then started selecting the "Wednesday" clue words. Those words were of course gibberish, so I asked him to do the same thing, except by letters (since that's exactly what the clue said). By the time he reached the "E" in CHARTTHE, I said "E" the same time he did, and we knew we had it. 

It was pretty laborious, but thrilling at the same time. Then we called the team and read off the sentences we had decoded, so they all hunted the "stars" while we stayed at the amphitheater plotted. I was incorrectly convinced that the pattern was going to be an arrow leading us to the small covered area over by the Claude Pepper statue (an arrow drawn on the map was used a few hunts ago). I was further sure we were on to it because I had noticed earlier that the name of that stage had all black letters, but a letter "I" had been replaced with a "shiny and new" letter made of aluminum.... When we met up with the team near there, I explained this, but they had a better plot of the "big dipper" which lead to the fountain (I think about this time, the 2nd hint explained that the stars were the big dipper). 

The fountain had 5 cars on display, with suspicious looking numbers posted in the front windshields; that again seeming to line up with "shiny and new". Anyway, one of the team noticed the EP letters in the fountain (very similar to the letter "I" I saw earlier). I remembered the EP on the map. We all agreed and walked quickly and quietly to the edge of the crowd and then began running. We rounded the corner and there was a small crowd of about 10 people at the final location. 

The rest was a matter of how fast you could dial.