A little bit of Paradise makes the tourist traps along the main drag in George Town, Grand Cayman, easier to endure. Photo by Jackie Hutcherson, Post-Dispatch

Hit the Road, Jack is taking a few days at sea aboard Princess Cruise Lines newest ship the Ruby Princess. This is the ship’s debut season and only its second voyage to the Caribbean. PD Travel editor Jackie Hutcherson is on board, with more than 3,000 other passengers, and blogging at sea.

Last night the Ruby found itself in the middle of a storm. The ship was rocking from side to side so much that passengers could see a very noticeable tilt after dinner, and it had nothing to do with how much they had had to drink. In DaVinci’s, one of the main dining rooms, we could hear the Ruby plowing through some extremely rough waves and winds. No one’s water glass slid off the table, so we kept right on.

Earlier in the evening I got a chance to speak to Capt. Tony Yeomans and he said the rough weather would change our Wednesday shore excursion plans to dock in Grand Cayman’s George Town. Instead we sailed around the corner to Spotts Cay, where Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas and Carnival’s Inspiration cruise ship also docked. Steve and I had planned on snorkeling through reefs and wrecks, but that, along with many other water-based shore excursions got canceled Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, passengers were boarding tenders and meeting their guides at Spotts Cay for their shore excurstions to places like Seven Mile Beach ($23-29). A pirate, who looked a lot like Johnny Depp, tried to get me to come aboard for the Cayman Pirate Encounter ($39-49), but I declined. Instead, we took a $5 taxi into George Town and did the typical tourist stuff, eating and duty-free shopping and people watching.

Mother nature doesn’t really care what your planning to do on shore excursion, so it’s best to just go with the flow. And as it turned out, we had a great time just knocking around the main shopping area. American dollars are welcomed on this British West Indies island. We stopped at the Tortuga Rum Co. and bought a mini 4-pack of rum cakes ($17.50) and a pound of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee ($32.20).

For lunch, we stopped at Paradise Bar & Grill and had the turtle soup ($5.95) and jerk shrimp ($14.95). The local brew, Caybrew, ($4), tastes like Corona, I’m told. Our table overlooked the rocky coastline and we watched the rough waves pounding the shore. It’s a beautiful sunny day here, but it with the wind roughing up the water, it was a wise decision to cancel snorkeling.

On deck: I still owe you a blog on the pluses and minuses of a day at sea AND climbing Dunn’s River Falls. Tomorrow we’ll be in Cozumel.