A tourist who posed for a photo on an “ice throne” in Iceland had to be rescued after she starting drifting out to sea in freezing temperatures.

Judith Streng was travelling with her son, Rod, and a guide, when she sat on a small chunk of ice shaped like a throne at Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon, but a wave dislodged the floe from the shore and she floated into the Atlantic.

The grandmother from Texas was rescued by a fellow American, Randy Lacount, a boat captain from Florida, who waded into the water and helped her down.

Speaking to ABC News, Streng said: “It was shaped like an easy place to sit. You can tell by looking at the shape of it, and I thought well it looks like fun.

“When I got on it, it started to totter and a wave was coming in. A very large wave came in and kind of made the throne kind of rock, and I could tell that I was slipping off."