Sailing Direction Exercise

"Breadfruit Picker Lashing" uses as metaphor the pole for picking breadfruit, which has a short stick lashed to its end at an angle that permits engaging the stem of a fruit and twisting it loose. In the navigator's imagination a breadfruit picker reaches out in a straight line along a particular star course, from one place to the next, until it turns in a new direction on another course, and so on until it has picked off along these courses all the known places, real and imaginary, in the navigator's repertoire. There are a number of breadfruit picker exercises, beginning at different places and following different star courses.

Similar exercises have been devised under other names in different atolls. In each the navigator follows a course from his home island to the island from which the exercise begins. He then proceeds in accordance with a set pattern from one place to another. The pattern may be to box the compass, or it may be to go in a series of zig-zags, or it may be to follow a main course northward, going off to east and west and back at each of a series of points along the main course. Some exercises rehearse the details of reefs, shoals, and seamarks along specific courses frequently traveled by local navigators.