Shivering in a lifeboat off the coast of Antarctica, Kay Van Horne cracked jokes, swallowed Dramamine and marveled at how well everything was going.

Horne and the other 90 passengers, along with all 54 crew members and nine guides, survived the sinking Friday of the M/S Explorer off the South Shetland Islands in the Antarctic Ocean.

"Nobody panicked," the 63- year-old Van Horne said Tuesday after arriving home in Denver. "Everybody got off that boat safely.

"It was just a miracle. But it says an awful lot for everybody, from the captain to the engineering crews to the Zodiac drivers. Everything was lined up in its proper way. They kept us informed every minute."

By Tuesday afternoon, Van Horne was back in her element, "feeding my little grandbaby. And life can't get any better than that."

The retired middle-school teacher is an adventurer and world traveler, but she had never taken a cruise because she's prone to seasickness. Still, she couldn't resist the lure of Antarctica.

'Company was wonderful'

GAP Adventures had put together the 19-day "Spirit of Shackleton" trip billed as retracing the harrowing journey of Ernest Shackleton, who in 1916 completed a two-year odyssey to rescue the crew he'd been forced to leave when their ship was destroyed by ice.

M/S Explorer embarked from Argentina's southern tip on Nov. 11.

"We'd already been out for two weeks, and the company was wonderful," Van Horne said.

Van Horne was playing cards just past midnight Friday when she saw the Explorer rumble through a swatch of ice.

"We made jokes about it, but it was the nervous type of jokes, to relieve the tension," she said. "I went up on the bridge and saw ice all around us. One of the crew had his binoculars out trying to guide us through the ice.

"When I went to my room, I joked with my niece that maybe we should put some long johns on instead of pajamas, because it was going to be a long night. That's when there was a big hit. We had hit ice before, but this was a little bit different."

Less than five minutes later, the alarm sounded. And everyone was told to get to the top level of the ship.

"They had us sit in the lecture room and informed us immediately that there was a hole. They were going to try to reposition the boat so they could patch it," Van Horne said.

Soon after, though, another iceberg collided with the Explorer. Van Horne described it as being the size of the ship.

"That's when I felt in my heart we were going to abandon the boat."

Water started bursting through toilets.

The crew quickly herded everyone toward the lifeboats.

"They didn't candy-coat it, but they didn't exaggerate the threat, either," Van Horne said.

Van Horne's lifeboat listed and bounced as it was lowered to the water. The stronger passengers fought the pull of the sinking ship, pushing the lifeboat away from the trough into the open water.

"There was still no panic," she said. "We realized it was a difficult situation, but whatever was going to be was going to be. Plus, the type of people on that boat - they were an adventurous group."

"Being Americans, we resorted to jokes," Van Horne said. "People were vomiting, nerves and emotions were swelling," she said. "But for the most part it was very supportive and very quiet."

Lisa Paisola, worried about her aunt's seasickness, found a crumpled-up Dramamine and told Van Horne to lean back while she sprinkled in the seasickness pill.

Help on the way

The captain had told them a couple hours before they abandoned ship that the cruise ship Norwegian was about six hours away, and another was 10 hours away.

Three or four hours after getting into the lifeboat, Van Horne saw in the reflection of the water a huge ship. About the same time, she saw a helicopter.

"That's when I started thinking, we can do this, we are going to be rescued," she said.

"One of the reasons why we survived is that two hours after the first distress call, the people at the Uruguay base on St. George's Island already were starting to look for us," she said. "It was like clockwork, the way the whole thing was done."

When the passengers were brought to Port Arenas in Chile, they stepped off a plane, and an American consul addressed Van Horne and her niece by name, telling them she'd be with them every step of the way until they were on an airplane home.

"I loved what our Swedish captain told us then," Van Horne said. "He said, 'If you have to be in a disaster, you want to be an American. I don't see consulates from any other countries here.' "

Back in Denver, her husband had made a huge pink sign, "Welcome Home, the Unsinkable Kay Van Horne," very appropriate for a huge fan of Margaret Tobin Brown, the Denver woman who survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 14, 1912, and became famous as the "Unsinkable Molly Brown."

With grandchild Michael Wright safely in her arms, Van Horne reflected on her hours in the lifeboat.

She sat in the chilly, choppy waters, thinking about all the things she had to go back to, including her grandson, born in June, when she and her niece were on a camel-riding adventure in Morocco.

Van Horne thought of the many Filipinos on the crew who lost almost everything because the small cabins on the ship were their most permanent homes.

She thought a lot of Ernest Shackleton, whose leadership resulted in not a single man lost nearly 100 years earlier.

Strong leadership made the difference in both crises, she said.

"I felt like I was on a field trip - but not in charge of it, for once."