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I'm not demanding that you use a snorkel, I'm just asking you to marshal a rigorous defense as to why you don't. Frankly, I'm happy to undergo that sort of examination as concerns any piece of gear that I choose to take into the water or that I refuse to take into the water, and I would expect any thinking diver to do the same. I have yet to hear any defense of not diving with a snorkel (except in O/H) that doesn't appear to me to translate into anything but, "I'm really not comfortable with it."
Nonsense. Any choice in scuba equipment that you make boils down to personal preference ... because there are always alternatives. No "rigorous defense" is needed. You choose what you choose because you want to. Any other reasons you come up with are rationalizations. And as we see here on ScubaBoard every day, there are endless rationalizations for every piece of dive gear out there ... from backplates to spare airs to split fins.
I'm completely comfortable with a snorkel ... I used one for decades before I ever learned how to scuba dive. I carried one for several hundred dives after I learned how to scuba dive. When I carried it, I almost never used it. Since I've stopped carrying it, I've never found myself wishing I had it. So why carry it?
The question posed by the OP was "do you need it" ... my answer is "no". I don't even find it particularly convenient, much less necessary.
If it works for you, fine. But please ... please ... don't pretend you're somehow superior with your skills because you choose to carry a snorkel. That's just damn silly.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)