Calculating bottom time?

[oly5050user]

This is what I'm asking about... let me rephrase the question...

Can my safety stop be an hour long, and moving around instead of sitting still... and still not count that hour in my bottom time OR my surface interval?

Nope..a safety stop is said to be 3 minutes at 15'...anything else is considered bottom time..as many have said bottom time starts from when you leave the surface and ends when you start to make a DIRECT ascent to the surface. Ascent rate and 3 minute safe stop not in that time frame. If you make an ascent from depth to 10-15' and stay there longer than 3 minutes that is not considered a safety stop but a continuation of the dive as you did not go directly to surface. Is it harmfull?? Not likely. Can it be counted as surface interval time? NO..

 

[TSandM]

In theory, any time you are underwater, you are ongassing somewhere, until you have reached the saturation point in the very slowest compartments. At 15 feet, however, you are at 1.45 ATA, which is below Haldane's 1.58 ratio, so in theory, no matter HOW much time you spend at 15 feet, you can make a direct ascent to the surface. In reality, you are probably offgassing virtually every compartment at that depth, so the hour long 15 foot "stop" is all decompression. If that were not true, technical divers who do long deco stops at 20 and 10 feet would have to add those stops to their bottom time!

As far as I am concerned, an hour spent swimming around at 15 feet is decompression, and I'd shorten the surface interval before the next dive because of it. But that's me.