Dave Zimmerly:And exactly what do you need to talk about while diving?
Dave (aka "Squirt")
And if you needed to breath underwater God would have given you gills. There are lots of operations where communications are not only convenient but essential. From a safety standpoint, analyze almost any diving accident and just having the capability to say "I need a hand over here" could have made a significant difference. Think it through, what other sport are you gagged and your hearing muffled? Forced to communicate by banging on your equipment, flash a light, write on pieces of plastic or use hand signals? No doubt there will be a few that will come back with "I go diving because I don't want to talk to anyone" or similar sentiments. There are also some people that I wouldn't want to be stuck in a car with let alone have to listen to them on a dive. That's a matter of picking your dive buddies. You don't have to talk if you don't want to.
Is it for everyone? No, but amazing efforts have gone in to working around the handicap of not being able to communicate underwater. Some certainly better than others. While the equipment isn't inexpensive, it's pretty reasonable when you think of the capabilities that it gives you. If all you do is kick around, look and visit the underwater world and you're in it of the "zen" of diving, then you probably wouldn't want comms. However, if you have specific tasks, then you would probably find that communications increase your efficiency. Personally, I have my comms tied into my video system. Everything said underwater goes into my camera. My videos aren't silent movies anymore.