Ten teams started the hunt split into two groups of five, with each group of teams unaware of the other's existence. Five teams started at the Independence Mining Camp in Alaska and the other five started aboard a ship identified as the U.S.S. Jefferson (although the US Navy currently has no ship by that name), off the coast of Hawaii. The first clue for both sets was in the form of a Morse Code message which teams had to decipher. Although none of the teams knew Morse Code offhand, there were guidebooks scattered around the locations.