We flew over the Pacific to the Hawaiian island of Maui just after Christmas, for our festive tropical new year break. That was amazing. We did have to get up super early in the morning to get to the airport and catch our 7am plane, which we did (though Sacramento airport was very busy), and had dramatic skies as the sun was coming up. We flew on a Boeing 737-Max-8, blissfully unaware of the problems that the Max-9 would have a week later when part of one came off shortly after take-off. Yeah let’s not think about that scary situation. As Superman says, flying is still the safest way to travel. Easy for him to say. Still the view was beautiful. I always have to do a bit of drawing when I fly, it helps me relax. Looking out of the window I tried to capture the colours and textures of the sky in my little Fabriano Venezia book.

It’s nearly six hours from Sacramento to Kahului, the main airport on Maui. Maui is a beautiful place, though it has suffered a lot in 2023 with devastating fires, namely the terrifying disaster than befell the historic capital Lahaina. I sketched there in 2019, when we visited on New Year’s Eve. While the buildings were destroyed, the historic Banyan Tree has survived, albeit terribly damaged. We were going to stay in Wailea, where we stayed on that previous trip, on the south-western part of Maui. We flew out with Southwest, and on the way we were able to watch the Tottenham game against Brighton & Hove Albion. Should win that right? We lost 4-2, and we were 4-0 down when we landed, so there was a little bit more Norf London Language than usual on this flight. (We made up for it by beating Bournemouth a few days later, but seriously, we were ravaged by injuries and suspensions).

I have a few Maui sketches to post, I wasn’t going to do a lot of sketching what with being in the ocean and the pool and playing my ukulele by the sea, but you know I can’t help myself. I’ll post those later. Below is the sketch from the flight home, this was the flight on the 737-Max-8 (I can’t remember what the plane was going out there, it wasn’t a Max-8 or 9), and they have a handy little tray that pops down where you can clamp in your phone or iPad to watch things on there, a very handy feature. It would still get sucked out if the window fell off though. I don’t think I watched much, a couple of episodes of ‘Marvel’s What If’, mostly just listened to podcasts and sketched, this time in that brown fountain pen. Buy the time we got home it was raining hard in the Sacramento valley, and a lot colder than the mid-80s of Maui. Happy New Year!