The Lily Pond Lodge

After our hike, we turned the car about and drove the five minutes back to Lily Pond. We turned left into the gate and announced our arrival through a little speaker that connected us directly to Nils. He let us in, and they both met us in the parking lot for welcome hugs.  

When we first met Unwind, we did that thing all sailors do when a new boat arrives, we weasel our way into taking “The Tour.” Unwind’s people had taken us around the boat, showing us all her sailing tricks up top, then leading us through the cabin below. Every passage making boat is different; they are all machines modified over time by the preferences and creativity of their sailors.  They are a canvas that puts on display the minds and priorities of their sailors as much as their original designers or shipwrights. Unwind, even more so, because she is a custom build. I remember thinking as we walked through, “you guys have thought of every little thing!” She’s a wonderful boat.

I was not surprised, then, to find that as we walked through Lily Pond Lodge, that Nils and Margret had thought of every little thing. “Oh, wow,” I said as we sat down at the restaurant bar with nibbles and wine, “this is just a beautiful property.”

After leaving us in Vanuatu, the Unwinds made a bee-line home. Though they left Lily Pond in the hands of trusted team members and they stayed involved from afar, Lily Pond started to miss Nils & Margret with oceans of distance between them. Before we met them, Nils and Margaret had already paused their circumnavigation to return to Lilly Pond and assure her that they hadn’t forgotten everything she meant to them. Lily Pond let them return to sea, but told them “come home as quickly as you can.” And, so they did. We met them right after they had resumed their circumnavigation, and they were on the fast track to speed through Asia and across the Indian Ocean to close their loop in Cape Town. They sailed the exact same route we eventually sailed, but in the span of one year rather than the Oddgodfrey four.

Once home, they got back to Lily Pond business. When Covid-19 hit, they had to weather a different kind of storm. Always hands on, they only became more so with Nils tending bar and Margret the lead chef in the kitchen. As we arrived, they took us though a lobby decorated with South African proteas with a couch to match perfectly in both shade and velour texture.

Rain started falling outside, pattering on the surface of an actual lily pond filled with pink, purple, and white lilies. A soft-grey evening light sets in, and Lily Pond’s right hand man sets to building a fire in the fireplace. We sat at Nils’ bar, clinked glasses of South African bubbly, and caught up over a plate of nibbles.

We are provided with umbrellas and guided us across flower lined paths to our room.  

“Look at this!” I exclaim to Andrew, holding up a fresh hibiscus that has been laid next to a chocolate brownie covered by a glass jar. I uncover the brownie and take a nibble to find bittersweet whole chunks of chocolate melting in my mouth between the squeeze of a traditionally dense and chewy brownie. It was, bar none, the best brownie I’ve ever tasted. And I do not give away such honors lightly. Andrew took a nibble, and he, too, agreed.

 Our room was decorated with bits and pieces of Africa, a comfy bed was in the center of the room, turned to face sliding glass doors that open onto a garden patio. For sailors, any old shower connected to hot water on land feels like a luxury, but at the Lily Pond, they offered us a ceramic bathtub and a separate shower with towels as soft, white, and fluffy as any sailor could ever hope for. The magic of laundry machines, I tell you. I peek out a sliding glass door next to the tub to find a little enclosed patio, covered with flowered vines, and offering an outdoor shower! Oh, what joy. There is only one thing a sailor likes more than a shower connected to hot water on land, that is an outdoor shower connected to hot water on land. It’s the absolute best of all worlds. We don’t stay in our room, long, though, as we are scheduled for dinner in just another half hour. I make a plan to soak in that bathtub a bit later.

 We met our friends back in the dining room for dinner. “Where do you get those incredible brownies!?” I ask Margret.  “Literally, the best brownie I’ve ever had.”

 Margret smiles. “I can give you the recipe if you like.” Oh man. She makes them! She also made our dinner. We start with an arugula salad with fresh berries. She brings our main course in small, hot ceramic pots straight out of the oven and offering us cannoli pasta stuffed with a pumpkin and mascarpone filling, topped with a delicate cream sauce.

“This is heaven. I want the recipe for this one, too!”

 We didn’t know whether Nils and Margret would be able to spend much time with us, but as luck had it, they could sit and enjoy dinner. Sailing friendships might be the most odd of all. It had been five years since we’d met, spent a few weeks traveling together, and then parted ways. None of that mattered. We slipped right back into easy conversation of current lives, future plans, and warm memories to reminisce over. Time and ocean miles make no difference.

Life Ashore, Behind the Scenes

We had a great sleep in our cozy beds, and enjoyed a morning coffee overlooking our garden patio. We walked the grounds and enjoyed a seat in the morning sun on the far side of the lily pond. From here, we could see the big picture view of Lilly Pond Lodge, a canvas as lovingly attended as a Picasso, but three dimensional, with pleasures of food, wine, and friendship to round out the visual beauty.

 “This is really something,” I told Andrew. “When you are inside the details of your life, none of it feels so glorious. You are making a nice dinner today, maybe you painted a wall, yesterday. But, if you look at all this from across the lilly pond, it’s amazing how it all comes together!”

“Mmm-hmmm…” Andrew says.

By the time we headed to breakfast, the sun was out, and tables were set on a patio covered with colorful umbrellas. Nils had to scurry off to the grocery to get ingredients for their guests’ dinner planned later that night, so he gave us a hug goodbye. Margret was making all her guests (including us) a breakfast of absolute perfection. Soon, her guests started off on their own days of exploration, and she had some time to sit with us and sip a coffee.

 “Do you want the behind-the-scenes tour?” she asked.

 We sure did. Margret took us behind the guest-facing lodge and into their real lives. We saw the kitchen where she works her Brownie-Magic. White and stainless steel, clean and calm, glass jars storing bulk ingredients labeled and in neat rows on open racks. A working, industrial style kitchen, but warmed with wooden cutting boards, light slanting in through the windows of one of the oldest buildings on the property, and Margret’s warm energy. We visited the herb and vegetable garden she keeps just outside the kitchen, it smelled of mint and lavender in the sun. Then, she showed us the garage they converted into a home.  This, was my favorite place of all.

It was basically one large room. Their bed was divided from the rest of the space with a wall composed of bookshelves filled with books and a few objects they’d collected over the course of their lives.  I recognized one or two that must have been acquired along their sailing path. There was a little kitchen, just a step or two away from a small dining area and some seating space. Two French doors opened out to a patio with the requisite braai. Their orange cat lounged in the sun falling through the windows of the French doors. It is a space on land built perfectly for sailors: small, functional, tidy, cozy, friendly, and adorned with a cat (or two). I love it.

I spent my entire time at Lily Pond raving to Margret and Nils about how beautiful everything was, and I’m sure they think I’m a bit of a kook. But, sometimes, my grasp upon the soulful, art-filled life I crave feels tenuous. After a ride on the vomit-comet, I wonder if I can keep hold and finish out this one dream, let alone find the next. But also, like the people who ask me “how can you ever return to normal life after you’ve gone sailing?” I wonder about that, too.

 We could, like Nils and Margret, make a direct sail home as quickly as we can. We could buy mountain bikes and spend an entire year here in South Africa biking what looks to be perfect terrain. We could wander across the South Atlantic, spending a few months in Namibia, a month in St. Helena, maybe hit the coast of Brazil. We could put on the afterburners and fly up the center of the Atlantic with Pete and Jen. We could sell up Sonrisa, buy property in Appalachia and build a writer’s retreat. We could go back to the high paced world of law firms and chemical sales to industrial manufacturing facilities. The world is our oyster. It’s always been our oyster. And with that wide open opportunity comes responsibility to use it wisely. These days, I rarely feel like I know what we should do, because….sometimes we are fast, and sometimes we are slow.

 And mostly, at least in our sailing life, the Oddgodfreys are slow.

P.S. If you ever want to explore South Africa’s Garden Route yourself, plan a stay at Lily Pond, you won’t regret it. You can reach Nils & Margret through Lily Pond’s website at: https://www.lilypond.co.za