Flexibility on the safety stop depth?

[rjpv]

Hey guys,

I do most of my diving off california, so I am packing a full 7mm wetsuit that makes me fairly floaty.

I run into difficulties during free-floating safety stops. With an empty tank, trying to hover at 15ft is significantly harder than trying to hover at 20ft (presumably due to wetsuit compression. Yet my good old PADI reference says to do my safety stop at 15 feet.

So, my question: is the depth of the safety stop flexible? Would I be losing the benefit by doing it at 20ft?

Thanks!

 

[divingjd]

It's flexible. A 20ft safety stop is fine. The description of the safety stop is often simplified to 15ft. for 3 minutes, a longer stop is good and 20 ft. is fine.

 

[Jake]

IIRC, my computer (Aeris Atmos II) counts anything between 15-30 feet as a safety stop.

The bigger issue is that you sound to be underweighted, a potentially dangerous problem. Who cares if you do your safety stop if you experience an out of control ascent from 15 feet because your tank was empty. Try adding two or so pounds and see if that helps. The walk down will suck a little more, but it might make you safer underwater.