Great Bay Temple

Great Bay Temple is infamous for its confusing structure and long length, but these speed tricks help it go along much faster, whether just to complete or to get all fairies along with it.

Skip All Turnkeys

It is possible to complete the entirety of the temple without turning the switches to change the water direction or create water pumps. The water direction normally needs to be switched to reach 2 green rooms. To skip the turnkeys, one must reach these rooms without changing the water direction.

Skipping the Water Pumps

2 Water Pumps normally need to be activated to continue; the yellow one at the start and the green one at the boss door. Both of these can be skipped with 4 distance hovers.

Yellow Pump

Green Pump

Get to First Green Room

To get to the first green room, one must simply hover to the aclove that leads to its door. This is just above the map chest, so it can be hovered to directly.

Get to Second Green Room

To get to the second green room, the one right before the boss door, one must use the titular "Turnkey Skip." There are 2 ways to reach this room. The first is to hover out of bounds and dive to the tunnel that you normally exit the room from. The second is superswimming against the current into the room, which is impossible (or very near so) to do in real time, and must be achieved through slowdowns, whether through TAS or pause buffering.

Turnkey Skip

Hover + Cutscene Dive Method

Discovered by Kaztalek

Load the waterwheel room and align Link to the left of the dark line on the wall. This is directly underneath the only OoB location in the tunnel, so it won't work on a different wall. Do 3 wall hovers up, making sure to get an angle change. On the next hover, hold up to stop your momentum, and end your hover once under the tunnel. Once there, turn around (use map cursor to help) and do distance hovers back until the background turns blue. At that point, dive with a full bottle or trade item and you will land in the tunnel. The current will take you into the room as it is reversed from what it would normally be.

Out-of-Bounds Swimming Method

Discovered by Gigo

Climb the Waterfall Without Ice Arrows

To reach the waterfall room for the fairy within before getting ice arrows, one can simply do 6 height hovers (with an angle change) and grab the ledge as Zora Link. Not recommended if low on explosives, as you usually come back to the waterwheel room with ice arrows, depending on what the goal is.

Boss Key Early

There are a few ways to get the boss key without fighting Gekko. The first is a simple jump from an ice arrow platform to the window it is in. Another method includes a precise side roll, which proves to be difficult. The most popular method is a Zora long jump directly to the window.

Fairy Strategies

Second Room Bottom Fairy

Opening the first door from about the middle to align this. The camera will be off upon entering, so pivot straight left and immediately shield drop a chu. It will go all the way around and hit the bubble underneath (the fairy noise will go off if wearing the Great Fairy's Mask, so that's how one can ascertain it was hit). An easier but less flashy method is to align straight forward in the middle of the platform and shield drop a chu after its fourth flash.

Waterfall Room

Go to the left of the original platform and hookshot the ceiling, pressing B immediately after and holding towards the platform to jumpslash on top to reach the fairy immediately. Alternatively, one can stand on the corner near the tektite then hookshot and hit B without a direction on the control stick to recoil on to the top.

First Green Room

To do the chu roll, stand relative to the location of the video and align c-up in about the same way, using parts of the HUD to make the alignment more consistent (Aligning the top of the game clock with the left side of the orange part of the floor works well), then shield drop the chu. This will have it go along the wall and under the seesaw to break the barrel with the fairy inside.

Alternate Method

If lacking explosives, one can get the fairies without hovering at all, yet still skipping the use of fire and ice arrows. A Zora roll jump with jumpslash is enough to make it from seesaw to seesaw with proper timing, then a long jump to the turnkey allows access to the tunnel to hookshot the fairy chest. For the second part, a much easier way of getting the fairy in the underwater barrel is to align with the back of the seesaw and shield a chu after its second flash.

Second Green Room Without Ice Arrows

To skip ice arrows, a chu recoil a slight bit to the left of the aclove from the peak of the elevator is enough to make it. Afterwards, a quick hookshot will reach the other chest from the moving platform below. The first chest can also be gotten with near frame perfect hookshotting but the risk greatly outweighs any time it would save in real time.

Last updated 07/26/2021 – Jake