By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP — While couples often travel abroad, one engaged couple took things a step further last month when they embarked on a journey to see glaciers, penguins, and whalebones.
Stephen Monson, 67, and his fiancée Gini Wallerstein, both of Winding Brook Road, embarked on an 11-day expedition to visit Antarctica in January. Starting off at the Argentinean city of Ushuaia, the southernmost metropolis in the world, they and almost 200 other passengers visited a number of islands before traveling due south to the Antarctic Peninsula.
“I remember the first landing—it’s sensory overload,” Mr. Monson said. “No matter which direction you look, it is enormous, beautiful vistas of ice and rock in every direction. And silence.”
An ice avalanche, an active volcano, fields of penguins, and seals lying atop whale skeletons were just some of the sights the two encountered.
“I can’t really give words to describe how exciting and thrilling it was, but it was the experience of a lifetime,” Mr. Monson said. “It’s something very few people will ever do.”
Ms. Wallerstein said the trip had a great impact on her as well.
“When I got there, I was awestruck,” she said. “It was so peaceful and quiet.”
The journey took place aboard the Minerva, which in a former life was used to tend Russian submarines, through the cruise company Regent Seven Seas Cruises. The ship can carry up to 400 people, but due to the nature of the expedition and an international agreement limiting visiting groups to 100 per disembarkation, only 198 people took the trip.
Though locally it was very cold during the couple’s voyage, it was summer in the Southern Hemisphere. So while Bordentonians endured temperatures in the teens, Mr. Monson said it didn’t go below freezing near the Arctic Circle.
Still, the fierce wind necessitated three layers of clothing, and the environment also demanded heavy boots, which passengers were required to disinfect frequently.
The use of a special patch on the arm kept both parties from enduring the seasickness some of the other passengers experienced, but Mr. Monson said the way was rough enough the guardrails around the ship’s beds were quite necessary.
“This is not like cruising to the Caribbean or the Mediterranean,” he said. “This is different.”
The couple decided to take the trip two years ago, before they were engaged.
“It’s not something where you say, ‘Hey, let’s go tomorrow,’” Mr. Monson said, in part because of how much needs to be packed.
With a lack of any facilities beyond the ship after Ushuaia, “if you don’t pack it, you don’t have it,” he said.
The only human civilization the expedition encountered was Arctowski Station, a Polish Antarctic research facility, and an abandoned whaling facility.
But Mr. Monson said the “amazing array of wildlife” present kept the travelers occupied. He described enjoying the sight of thousands of nesting penguins up close. To protect both humans and animals, naturalists from the ship set out flags to mark limits for the voyagers, who were then free to wander around within that area.
“The penguins were very up-close and personnel,” Ms. Wallerstein said, explaining they sometimes came within two feet of her. “At one point I had a group of about 12 of them marching in front of me, and it just made me think of ‘The March of the Penguins.’”
Whales also were a highlight, Mr. Monson said. At one point, a mother and calf swam alongside the boat, and at another the captain took a quick detour to observe four orcas playing.
Even the icebergs provided entertainment, the couple agreed. At one point a large iceberg near the ship rolled over.
“The captain was very upset,” Ms. Wallerstein said, but while she saw it “bobble back and forth,” she wasn’t scared at the time.
“I thought it was beautiful,” she explained.
The couple plans to continue their travels, Mr. Monson said. But their polar trip has stayed with them in a way he said was hard to describe.
“When we departed, the naturalist said, ‘Going to Antarctica is like going to another planet,’” he said. “They’re absolutely right. And when you come back, if you have started with that as a premise, you feel different.
“My sense is, I feel humbled by the experience because it puts you in your place as a human being… It just reminds you that while humans have a place, we are part of a larger picture.”
