Nancy Drew and the Ransom of the Seven Ships Walkthrough (Part One) -- the Shark Diving Ecotourism Resort

Nancy Drew and the Ransom of the Seven Ships Walkthrough (Part One) -- the Shark Diving Ecotourism Resort
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Begin the Adventure!

The ever popular teen Sleuth has made the transition from books to the PC interactive adventure game. Perhaps you got tired of the simple way games like Ravenhearst and Mystervyille implemented the genre, or you wanted to take a break from playing the detectives created by Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle. The Nancy Drew series offers parents and children to engage in a challenging game without the need to worry about exposing their children to inappropriate content.

Nancy Drew and the Ransom of the Seven Ships starts when someone kidnaps her friend Bess Marvin off the coast of the Bahamas. In order to locate Bess, Nancy must solve a 300-year-old mystery.

The game starts off when Nancy Drew introduces herself. Look around the lobby until you find a plane ticket. This is one of the few things a person must do in a certain order. The rest of the game follows an open-ended nature that helps set the mood of the game and lets a player go back to search for clues that he might have missed when he traveled through an area early.

When you pick up the play ticket from Nancy’s desk, you will be given the option to choose between Junior and Senior Detective. This does not affect the game’s storyline, but it does affect the difficulty of the puzzles you will solve in the game.

The game displays a cut scene. The final pilot reveals that you have been the first flight he has taken across to Devils Island in weeks. The atoll normally remains deserted.

Meet George

When you hit the docks, George comes running towards you. She rushes past you and tries to get the attention of the pilot before his plane takes off. She comes back to talk to you when this attempt fails. George reveals that Bess went missing when you talk to her. She gives you two notes, one from the staff of the Shark Diving Ecotourism Resort and another from Bess’s kidnappers. You give her the task of fixing the satellite phone to call for help. Your job is to find the clues that lead to the treasure and your missing friend.

Shark Diving Ecotourism Resort Lobby Area

After you finish the conversation with Bess, you can now check the task list on the top of your screen. One of the first tasks assigned to you is to look thoroughly around the lobby area. You will find several clues here, including information on El Toro. Bess also tells you about a golf cart that needs water to work properly.

Searching the lobby area reveals information on a type of monkey and a type of language developed, information about bats and birds native to the island, a chart that reveals nautical codes, a pamphlet about the monkeys, and an electronic device for calling bats needs a battery. Printing out the flags helps you later, and taking a few notes on the bat frequencies and El Toro’s fleet will help you reference these items later in the game.

Pick up the bat seeker. Open it and find it has a missing battery. The circuitry has been removed by someone. You must place the circuits and diodes on open holes in the bat detector circuit board. Two possible solutions to the circuit board puzzle are shown below.

batseeker2

batseeker

The Lobby And the Outside of the Resort

bess’s golf cart

The most important item to take from the lobby area is the scuba gear. The lock puzzle starts with lit and unlit lights. To unlock the door, you must turn off all the lights. The correct solution depends on whether you are playing the game as a Junior or Senior Detective.

Junior Detective

  • Solution 1 - Press 5, 15, 25, 10, 5, 22, 21 and 7.
  • Solution 2 - Press 21, 22, 25, 15, 10 and 7.

Senior Detective

  • Solution - Press 20, 14, 8, 9, 4 and 5.

The door opens. Take out the walkie-talkie and the scuba gear. You will need the scuba gear later and the walkie-talkie allows you to keep in touch with George. Go back out into the lobby and located the bat calling device. Open it up and look at the circuit board. The screen shots below show possible solutions. The pins must fit into the hole and the circuits and diodes may not touch each other. The circuitry is fixed, but you will still need a 9-volt battery to use the item.

Head outside of the lobby and go to the right. You will find a golf cart and a shed. Read the note someone placed on the golf cart to find out that it needs 100 millilitres of distilled water. If you try to open the shed, you find out that it is locked. Nancy Drew makes a comment that the front desk might have the key.

Traveling back to the front desk and talking to George reveals that the Gibsons leave a key at the desk. Take the key from the desk and go back to the shed. The key fits in the lock perfectly and the door opens. You should also find a framed coin that commemorates the Sinking of the Antocha.

The flag that rests at the bottom of the chest contains a combination lock. Nautical flags adorn the top of the chest. Each of the flags corresponds to the number you found in the code earlier. The flags reveal the lock’s combination. If you printed out the nautical flags poster, you can refer to the chart to figure out the combination. Click the numbers 7, 9, 0, 2 and 4 on the dial. After you open the bin, take the sails out from it. Remember that shovel that the task list says you should look for? Take it from the door of the shed.

The Junior Detective Golf Cart Battery Puzzle Solution

battery

Each golf cart battery needs exactly 100 milliliters of distilled water to ensure proper operation. Use the distilled water you took from the shed and place it on top of the batteries. The display at the top of each battery tells you how much water each battery currently holds. The device that fills the cart contains six blue buttons and one red button. A valve controls the flow to each battery. Placing the valve in the vertical position blocks the flow of water to the battery, and placing the valve in a horizontal position allows the battery cells to fill with water.

The solution for this puzzle varies depending on the level you have chosen.

Junior Detective Solution

Leave the valves for the top two batteries alone. These batteries already contain 100 millilitres each. The bottom batteries contain 45, 15, 25, and 45 going from the middle left to the bottom right. Several combinations work here and the one listed is not the one the author used.

  • Open all 4 of the bottom switches and press one of the blue buttons. This will change the amount of water in each battery to 60, 30, 40, and 60
  • Close the bottom left button and press another blue button. 20 milliliters of water. The batteries now read 80, 50, 40, and 50
  • Repeat the previous step and the numbers should now read 100, 70, 40, and 70.
  • Close the middle left, right middle, and bottom right buttons. Press a blue button again. You have successfully brought the water level to 100 millilitres in two of the batteries.

Close the middle left and the bottom right button. Press another white button and fill all the batteries.

Golf Cart Battery Solution – Senior Detective

Sandegg1

You must fill the water level in all 6 batteries to 100 millilitres. The volume of each battery starts at 15, 40, 60, 55, 55 and 75.

1. Open all 6 switches by turning them to point to green. Press a white-blue button to dispense 10 mls to all 6 batteries and get 25, 50, 70, 65, 65 and 85.

2. Close the switches of top right and middle left. Press a white-blue button to dispense 15 mls to top left, middle right, bottom left and bottom right to get: 40, 50, 70, 80, 80, 100.

3. Open top right, middle right and bottom left; all others are closed. Press a white-blue button to dispense 20 ml and get 40, 70, 70, 100, 100, 100.

4. Open top right and middle left; all others are closed. Press white-blue button to dispense 30 mls and get 40, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100.

5. Open top left and close all other. Press white-blue button to dispense 60 mls and get 100 mls to all of the batteries.

Searching for Bess on the Island

johnny rolle

Take the golf cart to various spots on the island. Parking lots indicate areas you can explore on foot. Search the island’s various parking lots until you find the blue golf cart Bess traveled to this location in. Following the trail will result in your brief capture. You will meet a Jamaican gentleman who is naturally suspicious of your motives. The fisherman will let you down when you ask him. The fisherman, who calls himself Johnny Rolle, has not seen Bess. He does let you know that there are other men on the island.

If you walk out and come back, you can ask him about the 9 volt battery you need to operate the bat seeker. He knows the location of one, but you must find a part of his boat. (It’s a good thing you have those sails in your inventory, isn’t it?) Write down the location of the beacon. Head south from Sangre Beach until you find the parking lot for Shark cove.

Help Nancy Drew Locate El Toro’s Journal

While you have most of what you need to find the nine volt battery, it is not the most pressing issue you face in solving the Ransom of the Seven Ships. One of the first items handed out in this games are instructions on how to find part of El Toro’s treasure. If you do not have the shovel go back to the storage shed of the Shark Diving Ecotourism resort and get it.

Follow the arrows inward until the game shows Nancy Drew in an overhead view. Move Nancy until you come to the 4 palm trees in the shape of a W. The thoughtful kidnappers left you a note that almost follows the pattern of a traditional treasure map. Because Ransom of the Seven Ships is an adventure game, you should expect to solve a puzzle here.

Each step has a multiplier listed after. You multiply this number by the number of objects you find at each stop. Multiply the number of objects time the multiplier listed on the kidnapper’s note. Take that many steps in the opposite direction. El Toro’s journal is buried in the upper part of the southwest corner of the Shark Cove map.

This post is part of the series: Nancy Drew and the Ransom of the Seven Ships Waltkrhough

Find the links to the other articles in this walkthrough here.

  1. Nancy Drew and the Ransom of the Seven Ships Walkthrough (Part One of Four)
  2. Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Seven Ships Walkthroough (Part Two of Four)
  3. Nancy Drew and the Ransom of the Seven Ships Walkthrough (Part Three of Four)
  4. Nancy Drew and the Ransom of the Seven Ships Walkthrough (Part Four of Four)