Boating seems like a pretty good fit here, yeah - adhoc and semi local, and everyone already relies on radio for stuff. And no issues with line of sight.
Is there no longer-range p2p digital tech here though? It tooks to me like this would always be island-local, if even that, and probably useless while further out. Though for inland stuff like smaller lakes that's not a problem.
The traditional longer-range P2P is HF radio and maybe Winlink email on that. APRS over HF is also possible, and Reticulum would be too if hams were allowed to use encryption.
On the passage from Panama to Polynesia we had daily HF radio contact with Hawaii and California. Sometimes radio weather was pretty bad, but generally it worked out.
In practice nowadays passage communications for 99% of boats is WhatsApp over Starlink, with maybe Garmin InReach as backup.
Is there no longer-range p2p digital tech here though? It tooks to me like this would always be island-local, if even that, and probably useless while further out. Though for inland stuff like smaller lakes that's not a problem.