Suzie's Bommie - Scuba Diving

Just 15 kilometers from Port Moresby is one of my favorite dive sites in Papua New Guinea - hard to believe that such good diving could exist so close to a capital city, but when the conditions are right Suzie’s Bommie is truly world class diving!

Located on the outside of the sunken barrier reef, which runs roughly parallel to the coast about six kilometers offshore, Suzie’s Bommie rises up from the sandy seabed at 30m to within 13m of the surface.

It is a pristine example of a reef ecosystem that sustains a diversity of creatures from the photogenic pygmy seahorse to schooling pelagics.

It’s position on the exposed Coral Sea side of the barrier reef means that it can only be dived when the conditions are right.

But a good dive on Suzie’s will remain etched into your memory for a long time.

I first dived it about five years ago and can still vividly recall trying to capture on film the incredible school of sweetlips that hang out on the top of the reef. Obviously feeling a degree of safety in numbers, they let me approach so close I could have reached out and touched them!

Suzie's Bommie - Underwater Photography

It seems that it’s location about 20m away from the barrier reef and surrounded by the sandy bottom, whilst being swept by the currents that rise up from the deep offshore waters has turned Suzie’s into an oasis.

For an underwater photographer Suzie’s offers a smorgasbord of opportunity with everything from tiny macro to superb wide-angle.

The elusive Rhinopias is to found at Suzie's, usually on the top of the bommie and down around 20m there are pygmy seahorses on the gorgonian fans.

Suzie’s can be dived from Loloata Resort in Bootless Bay – it is just 6 kilometers from the island, or with the Dive Center at the Airways Hotel.

There are two distinct diving seasons in the Bootless Bay area, June to October when the winds blow from the southeast bringing the cold Pacific Ocean waters from off the east coast of Australia. Making first contact near Milne Bay, the southeast currents then sweep up the coast towards Port Moresby and Bootless Bay.

From January to March the predominant winds are from the northeast and bring waters containing the nutrient rich run-off from the many rivers of PNG into Bootless Bay.

It is this combination of cold water & warm waters, currents and nutrients that create the conditions that make Bootless Bay such a great diving location.

In between the two main seasons are the doldrums and the one in November & December is the very best time to dive Suzie’s Bommie as the oceanic waters from Australia have brought good visibility and the calm weather produces the optimum diving conditions.

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