Kay Van Horne says life isn’t worth living if it doesn’t have imperfections along the way.
The 64-year-old retired teacher had the most imperfect experience aboard an Antarctic Ocean cruise when the Canadian ship struck ice Friday and sank.
Van Horne, now safely back home in Denver, held onto her bright-orange life vest Wednesday as she told the tale of her rescue. She giggled with delight when asked if she would get on a ship again.
“Absolutely,” she said. “I would not hesitate.”
Van Horne decided to take the G.A.P. Adventures cruise — aboard the M/S Explorer, along with 99 other passengers and a crew of 54 — in part to retrace the journey of explorer Ernest Shackleton, who made a 1914 expedition to the Antarctic. The cruise began Nov. 11 at Argentina.
The ship suffered a fist-size hole in the bottom when it struck submerged ice, and water began to swell throughout the ship’s plumbing system, prompting it to go down faster.
Shackleton’s ship also struck ice and sank, but he had to wait months to be rescued, while Van Horne’s ordeal lasted seven hours.
Van Horne does not want to diminish the fear she felt when she was told to abandon the ship and board a lifeboat. All 154 survived.
“Anyone who would not say they were petrified and not scared would not be telling the truth,” she said. “But there was the optimism of human survival.”
Van Horne said she heard the ship strike the ice. She was wearing her pajamas when the warning signal went off but managed to grab a hat, a brown down jacket and boots.
One of the scariest moments, she said, was when she and 30 other passengers had to push the lifeboat from the ship against the surging waters of the Antarctic.
As time passed on the lifeboats, she and her fellow passengers began to trade clothing and assurances.
Someone handed Van Horne a pair of water-resistant pants. She gave a shivering man her hat, and someone else handed him a scarf.
Van Horne’s niece, Lisa Paisola, who took the trip with her, gave her some crushed Dramamine to stave off seasickness.
“The story is the story of survival,” Van Horne said, “the humanity of giving and the feeling of people truly giving to you.”
When Van Horne saw a Norwegian cruise ship come across the horizon, she said she felt “boundless joy.”
But she still tears up when thinking of the crew who lived on the Explorer. Aboard the Norwegian ship, she watched as the Explorer began to move onto its side, but she never fully saw it go under.
“The Filipino men, they lived on these boats; this was their home, and they lost everything,” Van Horne said.
Meanwhile, Van Horne’s husband, Gil Foster, was worrying back home.
The night before he heard she was in danger, Foster read an e-mail written by Paisola that said the sound of ice hitting the boat was keeping her aunt awake.
Foster and Van Horne had visited the Titanic museum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and he remembered films showing coffins of people who died lined up along the pier.
Such visions came and went until he heard that Van Horne had been rescued.
“She is a very strong woman,” he said. “She was probably in better shape than I would have been.”
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
