In fact, some of us who came from an oceanographic viewpoint thought it was pretty stuffy.
Bathymetry is sort of an oceanographer's hydrography.
As a bathymetrist my mission was to describe as best as possible the actual shape of the terrain under sea water. This is necessary for scientific or engineering related to acoustic ray path or laying cable. This may be entirely unnecessary for the mariner who simply wants to avoid disastrous contact of his hull with that land. As a bathymetrist I produced contour charts just as are seen for land features. They may sort of do that, but their real purpose is to show a limit of the area in which lesser depths may be found.