It sounds terrible, I know. Instead of saying "I've been trained to be a CTD hooker," how about "I've been trained to work the CTD taglines." The CTD is the big cage w/ niskin bottles that are open when lowered into the water, and closed at specific depths on the way back up. On the Knorr, there's an extendable boom that's used to put the CTD well away from the side of the ship before lowering or raising it, and that's why we need to have taglines -- ropes with self-closing hooks on the end that we attach to the sides of the CTD cage using long, heavy poles. Once the lines are attached to the CTD, we can use simple winches to keep the lines taught as it's brought on board, to help keep it from swinging out and smashing the rails.

I'm also the CTD watch chief, the one who (until recently) stayed inside with one finger on the button to trigger (fire) the bottles, and the other on the talk/listen toggle to keep in touch with the Able Bodied Sailor working the winch. Now that the cruise is well underway, several of the folks who had been free to work the taglines are too busy taking and processing water samples -- so the CTD watch chief gets to leave the nice, dry, stuffy indoors, and head out on deck to get their feet and hands wet.

It's nice to have a break from the computer, actually. And it's nice to handle lines on a ship, because I was beginning to feel like something was lacking from the big North Atlantic sailing adventure.