I have been to Little Cayman twice both times at Little Cayman Beach resort.
{editing}
Is it worth the price? Well, I can not tell you that. "Worth" is subjective. It is more expensive than other places. You can see pretty much everything you can see at Little Cayman at other places. Personally, I am glad I went to Little Cayman. I paid a bit of a premium but I was glad to.
"Glad I went" is a pretty nice summary.
The Cayman Islands are surely not a 'bargain' destination, but they aren't all that more than other places we have been such as Grenada, Grand Turk, Anthony's Key. As bonus, they are much easier to get to than many other Caribbean destinations.
Yes, nature has taken her toll on reefs everywhere. But like everywhere, the diving recovers and is still very good, as evidenced by various Cayman dive operations receiving constant awards by dive magazines and organizations. The Sister Islands' dive sites are often even better than lots of the Grand Cayman sites due to remoteness and fewer divers in general...
DS
I can't speak to "value" for you.
But I can tell you that you are really entering a different situation on LC than GC or Bonaire.
In diving circles, most consider Bonaire a cheap place to go diving as is Cozumel.
None of the Cayman Islands will ever be considered cheap.
LC is a definite step up, on island economically, from Bonaire. Definite. Poverty does not exist on that island.
As we can see from the above, the "value" (or "worth") paradigm is the more difficult question to answer, since it is trying to balance costs vs dive quality.
Historically speaking, the "Big Three" dive destinations of the Caribbean had been Cayman, Bonaire and Cozumel. And to grossly oversimply, it was Cayman for Quality, Bonaire for Quantity (unlimited shore diving) and Cozumel for Cost.
Historically, Grand Cayman did have diver-based "value" accomodations: the Holiday Inn, the Magnificent Dive Dump, Enterprise B&B, Sea View Hotel, Coconut Harbor ... the list goes on,
but these 'affordable' hotels are now all gone. While Cayman was always a bit more expensive than others, by trying to go "Upscale", they've unfortunately made themselves even less cost-competitive.
FWIW, I've also noticed in the latest (2011) TV marketing campaigns that Cayman isn't even really advertising that it *has* scuba diving (a short clip from Stingray City simply doesn't cut it).
Fortunately, most of these "cost/value" problems reside on Grand Cayman's 7 mile beach, more so than on the Brac or on Little Cayman, and AFAIC, both of the Sister Islands have better quality diving than Grand, partly due to fewer customers (and fewer hotel rooms) per square mile of reef.
(continuing)
The vis is better on LC than GC and Bonaire.
I think you will be hard pressed to find better food than you get on LC. Pirates Point, Southern Cross, LCBR and Iggy all serve very good food. All of the accomodations on LC are top notch, in real good shape. Certainly no Ritz though. LC is a small island.
My assumption of the visitors to the island is that there are in large percentage higher end people and the island caters to that by taking care to provide the little touches, the customer care and service. Everything on the island is in good shappe and taken care of.
All in all, you will be hard pressed to find a nicer, friendlier, more accomodating and more knowledgable group of divemasters anywhere in the world.
The diving is easier on LC than most places you visit. Little currents and nice shallow safety stops where you can still see things for the most part. No real mid water safety stops.
I can't speak to Pirates, but the rest of the island operators are "valet diving". Which is defintely a step up from shore diving on Bonaire. And they will leave your gear alone if that freaks you out.
No, you can't go below 110 feet and other than Pirates, they limit you to 50 minutes on the first dive and an hour on the second and third. Pirates does it differently, only two dives and longer dives, but I don't believe more depth. You can play follow the leader underwater there, or you can go on your own.
Generally speaking, the boats on LC are about the best boats you will dive on, large, uncrowded even with 18 on board, well set up and stable. Short boat rides to the dives sites as well.
LC is the safest place I have ever been...
Good point on the 'safety' topside factor. It is clearly something that's worth something, although how much its worth is a YMMV.
Next, Pirates Point is Valet Diving style too; their basic philosophy is that adding an afternoon dive would get in the way of the food. I can recommend that approach
Insofar as diving rules, pretty much all of the resorts stick to the Cayman Islands Watersports Association's generalized policies of 110fsw max, have a buddy, no dead boats, etc. There is some lattitude, but it is mostly common sense: if you demonstrate a mature attitude to encourage the staff to be comfortable with you as being trustworthy and not a risk (not a "rogue diver"), then there's not generally a problem. It does vary, of course: over the years, I've noticed that there is variation in emphasis which can vary by the composition of the customers onboard for a particular week, as well as by how recent the last dive accident was. But for something like a minor transgression on max depth, if you've not been pushing the limits ("deep for the sake of deep") on every dive all week, something that's clearly 'more special' dive site will probably be overlooked without comment.
One severe hurricane in last twenty years. If that is too many and too recent then you'll be hard pressed to dive in most of the Caribbean.
It also depends on how severe the hurricane has to be to "count", as well as exactly where you're looking. The Caymans have been impacted by Gilbert in 1988 (CAT 4), Ivan in 2004 (CAT 5), and in 2008, Gustov (CAT 3) and Paloma (CAT 4), although it can also be argued that only two of these (Ivan & Paloma) were direct hits. And insofar as "where", Gilbert passed offshore but caused extensive damage to the Brac & LC on their southside reefs & shores without really impacting Grand; Ivan effectively missed the Sister Islands and hit Grand hard; Gustov also passed 25 miles to the south of the Sister Islands, but was close enough to take out southside docks on the Brac and its heavy rains flooded the Brac & Little Cayman; Paloma nailed the Brac although almost without any storm surge or reef damage there (plus the docks hadn't been rebuilt yet) and had no real impact on Grand. As big as a hurricane appears on a map, its area of really severe weather is surprisingly small in context to hitting one island that's only ~10 square miles, although looking at near misses and 3 islands does improve these odds.
In any case, I think the underlying question here is: "Is there reef damage from Paloma to be worried about?" The short answer is No.
I've only spent two weeks so far in the Sister Islands since Paloma and while I have a few hundred new UW photos, I unfortunately have only
this single one online at the moment to illustrate.
-hh
