Niugini Dive Adventures - Papua New Guinea




	Niugini Dive Adventures Papua New Guinea

Banana Bommie

Location

Banana Bommie is a bank in Milne Bay Province, at the mouth of the Bay of the same name, to the north. The diving zone is a bank that rises to six metres below the surface. Oval in shape and lying from south to north, it is approx. 100 metres long and thirty metres wide, the walls fall quite steeply to 30-40 metres on a sandy sea bed with blocks of coral of varying dimensions . The most interesting area - the east wall - presents attractive rifts where many forms of life thrive.

Dive

The MTS Discoverer drops anchor in the channel of dead coral formed by a ship that ran aground on this reef, generally beaten by a current coming from north-east. You dive into the water from the boat to 6 metres; proceed to the wall facing north-east, the most interesting one and teeming with fife. Keeping the wall to your left you can descend to the sand at 30 metres, where numerous garden eels peep out of their holes. Along the wall are large bushes of black coral, the branches hiding small hawkfish, huge barrel sponges and gorgonians of all types and colours. The ever-present glassfish dart in and out of crevices and alcyonarians sway gracefully in the water.

There is great activity all over the wall and on the upper part of the reef with shoals of fish passing incessantly. As you rise you will see a multicoloured array of crinoids attached here and there like flowers. The dive is not difficult despite the presence of surface current. If you stop along the reef and look towards the open sea you will often see large tuna fish streaking past the wall, probably in search of prey, while small shoals of carangids and fusilierfish swim all around the bank in a whirl of silver reflections.

At depths of 20-30 metres it is fairly common to encounter a stationary group of 4-5 batfish; these will allow you to approach almost until you are touching them.

When the current is flowing from south-east the boat is anchored on the northernmost tip of the reef; the dive is therefore made in the opposite sense to come to the same places. In this case the route is slightly longer.

On return to the top of the reef you will find several anemones with their clownfish and careful observation of the coral reef will often reveal a blenny peeping out of its den. As you have to return to the point of departure, any necessary stops for decompression can be made on the anchor chain or on the trapeze situated three metres below the surface for this purpose.