A 60-year-old grandmother from Rotorua has become the first person to make a double crossing of Cook Strait in a rowing skiff.
Pam Dickson performed the feat in seven hours and 51 minutes on Friday, rowing from Makara west of Wellingon to the South Island's Perano Head and back to Oteranga bay on the Capital's south coast.
Dickson says during the double crossing she was capsized four times by large waves and had to fight against a tide that threatened to sweep her out to sea.
The grandmother of 10 children only took up rowing 11 months ago and is also the oldest woman to have swum Cook Strait, at age 55.