Tow-Yo own CTD

Watch schedules have begun. Everyone has their 6hr watch with Vicki, John and myself lucky enough to sit 3am-9am. Since the weather refuses to behave long enough to put Jason in the water we are plume hunting with Tow-Yo CTD lines. CTD stands for Conductivity, Temperature and Depth, the actual CTD is mounted to the bottom of the rosette which currently has eight Niskin bottles for water collection. Traditional CTD casts are vertical and a single instance of up and down. Tow-Yo casts are run as lines where we yo-yo the CTD over a distance, ranging between 20m-300m off the seafloor, with the goal of finding hydrothermal vent plume signals. Last night the CTD was put in the water and a short off axis segment was towed. The CTD was then recovered and relaunched at the beginning of our shift for the longer on axis line and we may have the CTD in the water for the next day or so, until the waters have calmed down enough for Jason to go in. Until then it's winch minding and event logging for all us watch standers.