Turn Back the Clocks

Question

_{This is part 45 of the puzzle series Around the World in Many Days. Each part is solvable on its own.}

Dear Puzzling,

This is a Slitherlink puzzle. Draw a single continuous loop along grid lines that does not cross itself. Numbers indicate how many sides of the numbered cell are used for the loop. Ignore the grey lines and letters when solving the Slitherlink – those form a background puzzle that helps you find the final answer in the end.

Today I have visited a uniquely beautiful aquatic ecosystem. Unfortunately I was not allowed to dive in, but that may be for the best from a conservation standpoint. Can you guess where I am?

Love, Gladys.

Solve on Penpa+
Background puzzle in a separate grid

Hints:

The clock shapes can rotate but not move. Only the ones matching the Slitherlink solution are relevant.

Gladys will return in Pre-Emptive Travels.

It seems to me like the Penpa is not letting me mark edges as a line. It is only allowing me to mark crosses. — Benjamin Wang, Dec 01 '23 at 14:40
@BenjaminWang I had the opposite problem but the solution is to click on "Tab", check composite, then click on "Composite" where it appears next to "Tab", and then click on "Loop" -> "Edge x" — caPNCApn, Dec 01 '23 at 14:45
without a puzzle name, "gladys will return" sounds really ominous lol — juicifer, Dec 04 '23 at 17:00
@jafe Is solving the background puzzle dependent on the slitherlink or are they mutually exclusive and just form the answer when put together? — computer_goblin, Dec 05 '23 at 18:30

score 8 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 08 '23 at 14:21

Gladys is at

JELLYFISH LAKE

Take the slitherlink solution as posted by 0x5453

and then

where possible rotate the circles to align the line segments with the slitherlink path. Thus the JEOL circle stays put, the YLAF rotates 270 degrees clockwise, the HSIP rotates 180 degrees, the AHNK does not rotate and the AEHL rotates 90 degrees.

Finally,

for those circles where the edges match we read off, from left to right, using only the letters within the slitherlink border to see JELLYFISH LAKE:

0x5453 · Answer 2 · 2023-12-01T15:19:59.677

Partial solution

Completed slitherlink:

Combined with background puzzle for convenience:

Steps taken:

Start with corners and constrained pairs like adjacent 3s.

Continue propagating constraints. In particular, the pair of possible edges on the 1 near the middle forces two of the edges on the adjacent 3, allowing us to fill in most of the bottom-right corner.

Coloring some cells for parity to see if that tells us anything useful.

It does! We can see that if dark gray was part of the green region, then it would form an island with the pair of 3s on the right side. Therefore, we can apply the correct colors and fill in a bit more.

Continuing from around the middle-right area:

Complete!

Turn Back the Clocks

2 Answers2

Partial solution

Linked