(Adds arrival of first survivors in Punta Arenas)

By Ivan Alvarado

EDUARDO FREI BASE, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Shipwrecked vacationers, some still clutching life jackets, boarded a military aircraft on Saturday and left Antarctica to begin long journeys home after their cruise ship struck ice and sank.

More than 150 passengers and crew escaped unhurt after being evacuated by lifeboats on Friday from the ship Explorer that hit ice off King George Island in Antarctica.

"I'm so relieved, I'm happy that everyone made it off the ship, because it could have been a big disaster," said Eli Charne, 38, of California, his voice halting with emotion.

"It's certainly nice to be on the way home now. I'm just really glad to be around still," Charne, wearing borrowed clothing and carrying a life jacket from the ship, told Reuters.

Charne was part of the first group of survivors to be airlifted from Chile's Eduardo Frei air base in Antarctica to Punta Arenas in southern Chile.

"They arrived around 7:30 p.m. (2230 GMT) and they are all doing fine," said Reinaldo Neulling, a Chilean air force spokesman.

He said the remaining passengers and crew of the Explorer would spend another night in Antarctica before being flown to Punta Arenas on Sunday morning.

Charne and 153 other passengers and crew climbed into lifeboats and drifted some six hours in calm waters before a Norwegian passenger boat picked them up and took them to the Eduardo Frei base.

There they were fed, clothed and checked by a doctor as they waited to be flown to Punta Arenas.

'I THOUGHT THE SHIP WAS GOING DOWN'

The 38-year-old Explorer, owned by Canadian travel company G.A.P. Adventures, took on water after hitting the ice at 12:24 a.m. EST (0524 GMT) on Friday.

Filled with vacationers from the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, Europe, Japan, Argentina and elsewhere, it was a week away from completing a 19-day trip following the 1914-16 expedition undertaken by Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Henry Shackleton.

"I thought the ship was going down," Charne recalled of the moments after he felt the ship hit the ice. "We were on the lowest deck of the ship, so we rushed out of the room and pressed the emergency button as water rushed in."

The ship, which offered two-week cruises around Antarctica at a cost of some $8,000 (4,000 pounds) per cabin, sank hours after the passengers and crew were evacuated.

Smaller than most cruise ships, the Explorer, built in 1969 and refitted in 1993, was able to enter narrower bays off the continent and scientists were on board to brief passengers on the region's geology and climate change, a G.A.P. spokesman said.

The growing number of tourists landing in Antarctica, mainly from cruise ships, has raised fears over the impact it could have on the continent's fragile ecology.

Another issue is the size and type of vessels operating in dangerous southern waters and the potential for an environmental and human disaster if a large ship should sink in Antarctic seas.

King George Island lies about 700 miles (1,127 km) south of Cape Horn, the tip of South America, and is the largest of the South Shetland islands. (Reporting by Pav Jordan; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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