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An open mesage to all cave divers and instructors, My name is Scott Bonis and I am a NACD cave diver and a TDI full cave instructor and trimix instructor. And I am proud to have earned each of these titles. For me, none of them were easy. I took my initial cave training with Steve Gerrard in Akumal in 1995. I remember at first having trouble with maintaining proper buoyancy wearing dual tanks. In fact Steve had to tell me to go make a bunch of open water dives to get comfortable with the equipment. I went out and made around fifty open water dives in dual tanks before I continued my cave training. I thought that Steve was a competent and conciencous instructor. But more than that, he was a genuinely kind man who helped me a great deal. My life style, since I am retired, involves staying in Southern Mexico for six months each winter and travelling around the US in an RV each summer. During the summers I teach open water scuba classes, manage my investment real estate, and spend some time with parents, children and grandchildren. My wife and I enjoy the freedom of this life style. Since I have a retirement income, making money from teaching scuba diving was not a necessity for me. This gave me the opportunity to work with Al Pertner. And that's exactly what I did for several winters, for six months each winter, for virtually seven days a week, for around eight hours a day. I assisted with cavern courses, intro to cave courses, cave courses, nitorx and advanced nitrox courses, decompression proceedures courses, extended range courses and trimix courses. I'd have to check my records to find the exact numbers, but I'm sure I assisted in certifying well over 100 students before I was certified as a trimix and full cave instructor in 1998. These facts can easily be verified by anyone who has had anything to do with the Akumal Dive Shop for the last few years. I have to admit that I do not understand all the hoopla with my teaching cave diving. I teach conservatively and safely, I teach never going down to the minimums allowed by the certification agencies (e.g. none of my students has ever exited a cave during a class with only 1/3 of his or her air left), I teach appreciation for the beauty and majesty of the caves, I teach self reliance first and then helping others whenever possible, and I teach an understanding of the dangers and challenges inherent in technical diving. I believe Steve Gerrard is a dedicated and hard working cave instructor. I believe he has dedicated a major portion of his life to cave diving and has spent a tremendous amount of effort in furthering both the safety and continuation of the sport. I know I will never have the amount of experience in the caves that he has. I still consider him "mi maestro", my teacher. And I believe that anything he says or writes is what he really believes and thinks is best for the cave diving community. And I also believe that I have earned the privilege of teaching technical diving. I have not done it through the standard path of NACD or NSS-CDS, but have earned it none the less. Technical diving is an important part of my life, but not all of it. I have a wife, children, grandchildren, friends in the RV community, a love for bluegrass music and cowboy poetry, and financial and real estate iinterests. I find that for me, cave diving and teaching technical diving for six months a year is a great way to live. And I do not see where I am hurting anyone else by doing this. And I also do not understand why I am being criticized for doing this. Cave diving is a wonderfull experience. Why don't we all concentrate on making it safer, better and more available. Rather than trying to build ourselves up by tryng to tear down each other. I have never seen anything good come out of pure negativity.
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