Judith Streng, from Texas, struck a regal pose on a hunk of ice that washed up on Diamond Beach in Jokulsarlon, while her son snapped a picture. It was a moment of triumph for the magnificent “iceberg queen,” as she was later dubbed.

That is, until a sudden wave dislodged the icy throne — setting grandmother adrift.

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