I have found that Little Cayman is the place that I compare every dive to. I have been traveling to Little Cayman since 1995, and have had excellent diving in every case. The accomodations at Sam Mccoys are modest, with little frills, but clean, and quite adequate. I find that there is good value at Sam McCoy's and I do not need to have fancy accomodations, or want to pay for it, when I am mostly outside enjoying the flora and fuana of the island. I found the staff to be quite accomodating with regard my group, and even allowing for special diets if desired. Additional excursions were offered, and bicycles available to explore on my own schedule. I would recommend this experience to anyone who is looking for good value, great diving and a friendly, Caymanian Native expereince. The Divemaster was available when needed, responsive to our needs to make the diving a more pleasureable experience, but did not hover and restrict my dive. He pointed out lots of sea life to our group, and had good knowledge of the sea life that lived there. Overall the expereince was wonderful.

I wish I could recommend McCoy's but I can't. The place itself is no frills but clean. The problem is in the attitude of the owners/managers. We booked a last minute dive package but they never bothered to tell us that they had no divemaster - he was off the island visiting his family. The McCoys pressed their son into service as our divemaster (he was on the island from Grand Cayman to do some underwater work for the gov't) but we had to schedule our dives around his work and he never got in the water with us because he was making 3 deep dives per day for his job. No shore diving was available either because the weather and the seas were pretty rough (Jan 2003). This all wouldn't have been so bad except that their attitude was that we were a nothing but an annoyance to them. Customer service is not a word in their vocabulary. They completely ignored us when they saw us, and never even apologized for the lack of a proper dive operation. However, they were certainly happy to take our money! Plus, the food was marginal at best. All in all, a very unpleasant experience except for the diving itself.

The diving on Little Cayman was GREAT & Sam McCoy is a wonderful man, but we had water only occasionally & could not even take a shower or flush the toilet ! We received absolutely NO compensation for this inconvenience & got hit with an OUTRAGEOUS bar bill!!!!

I've been to LYB 3 times last year, once shuttling between LYB's biggest beach resort and its smallest, McCoy's Dive and Fishing Lodge. I've cycled the island many times, and have been to most all the dive operations. I've since stayed with McCoy's for 3 reasons: home style living with a true Cayman local which includes many funny stories once you can get them to open up, absolute freedom in diving my profile, and a beach front dive to Bloody Bay wall.

If diving's your thing, McCoy's is the best shore based liveaboard approach to diving Little Cayman. It is not the Hyatt, Mariott or a Motel 6. Its really like someone's home with extra rooms. The lodge is near maxed out at 7-8 people, and their boats comfortably fit 16 divers ... so there is rarely a crunch. In the 3 times I was there, I was the only diver in half the 10 days visits, and the most I dove with was 8 divers. I could go anywhere!

Sam's operation will let you dive as much as you can tolerate. They supply only air, and their diveshop can do rudimenatary gear repair, so come fully self sufficient. They have running water, continuous electricity and airconditioning.

Bloody bay wall is a shore dive via McCoy's beach which is not easy because of sea urchins and a shallow barrier reef, or a very short drive west to a better beach entry at Jackson's Point, or Sheer Wall's beach [ a McCoy property], or the only dock in the island at 1/4 mi east. You can take tanks with you and park them on the beach, and explore all the way into night dives. I run 100 min dives per tank, and dove 2 boat dives in the morning, 1 in the afternoon and 1 at night. This covers from 8AM to 8pm daily, with the day over at about 11pm. I'd pack lunch and water, and eat breakfast and dinner at the lodge.

The food is Cayman, actually Cayman Brac, that means two carbohydrates in each meal, choose a pair: rice, potatoes, pastas; fruits in there too Spanish stype, and meat or fish as the main dish. You can have any type of meal cooked as you prefer, but within the limits of the chef's abilities. I eat everything! But if you have specific dietary restrictions, you will need to supervise the cook closely.

The swimming pool is more a jacuzzi without the jets, but its perfect for rinsing out after a dive. If you want to swim, go to the beach, or to Point of Sands, at the very west end. All the water is via reverse osmosis or rain water, so I'm happy there is little extravgance in water consumption and waste, even at the bigger resorts.

I do 170 dives annually, to technical depths and gases. I've previous been to Statia, Grand Cayman, St. Maarten, Turks & Caicos, and South Florida. Little Cayman is best to date. Weak current pulls to shore, wall starts at 15' and drops deep, temperature is stable through the depths, and visibility is typically 100+', and at worse, 50-60' [ when the seas churn, and boats cannot move in and out of the island, you can sneak dives at hidden spots the locals showed me, were the vis is stellar and stable enough to enter and exit Bloody Bay.]