The day after Christmas we took another short trip away to Hawaii. It was the second time we’d been there in 2021, amazingly, as we decided to take advantage of a good deal and a window between variant surges. My Mum was visiting us from England and had never been to Hawaii, so it was a nice treat for her, a special trip. Hawaii is really, really far away from Burnt Oak, certainly the furthest I’ve ever been away from home. My wife’s mother came too. We stayed in Waikiki, we had a nice sunny first day, but the other days were a bit more changeable – that tropical climate bringing a bit of rain here and there, and we did get a massive downpour on the last day. But it was beautiful, it was Hawaii, I had my Hula Pie at Duke’s, splashed about in the ocean, explored the other side of the island, and played the ukulele a lot – I really have ‘Mele Kalikimaka’ down now. I did go stand-up paddle-boarding again, but this time in the actual ocean itself rather than the lagoon like last time, when I thought I was good at it. This time, I fell into the water a lot. There wasn’t much stand-up in the stand-up paddleboarding. I kept getting heckled by the fish. I didn’t do that much drawing, but I did sketch the scene on the plane over (yet another), and also by the Ala Wai Canal in the early evening, getting rained on.
I did draw a couple of panoramas in my sketchbook, the next one being on the beach at Lanikai. I did splash about in the ocean for a bit, but mostly sat playing the ukulele or drawing. This was a beautiful beach, quite popular, not very big. The clouds rolled in and out, giving us a few sprinkles.
Finally, the view from our hotel room at the Sheraton. That was a really nice hotel. We didn’t get a view of the ocean this time, but a lot of Waikiki skyline. For this one I drew the outlines of all the buildings while the rain poured down, but I drew the rest of the details on the plane home.
Next time, we want to go to Kaua’i, we’ve never been there. Aloha!