It’s not often that a trip to the supermarket results in you agreeing to embark on a trip to row across the equator in the Maldives, but that’s exactly what happened when Anne Buckingham bumped into a friend while out shopping.

The High Wycombe resident was picking up ingredients for a Christmas pudding when she ran into Olympic silver medallist Guin Batten in Waitrose back in October, and was persuaded to join the famed rower as she assembled a team that would attempt to row the Zero Degree Channel.

This feat had only ever been achieved once before, by Batten herself in 2010, but was successfully managed by a team of 18 people from around the world during a nine-day trip from 7-16 February which also saw the assembled rowers complete a 52km row from Addu Atoll to Fuvahmulah – the first time it had ever been done.

“Who gets two world firsts at the age of 44?” said Buckingham.

“I’m fortunate enough, through the volunteer work that I do, to be surrounded by a lot of current members of Team GB. I know what they do and it’s incredibly difficult and incredibly hard, and I’m nowhere near in their league.

“To be in a position to claim anything is great. I’m just a mother from High Wycombe.”

Buckingham, who is a committee member of the Leander Club in Henley, admitted that she initially rejected the opportunity as she was reluctant to leave her job and three-year-old child for the best part of two weeks.

She had also undergone surgery to remove her gall bladder in September but, after bumping into Batten, decided to sign up for the trip a month later, leaving her desperate to get in the requisite shape for when she travelled to the Maldives.

She said: “I’ve never done anything this crazy before. I’ve rowed for years but I was really out of practice. I was hospitalised five times last year between January and September, I was completely unfit.

“December was spent in the gym and January was spent on the rowing machine. I rowed 380,000m in January to ensure I had the stamina to do this. I dropped two dress sizes to make sure I was fit enough to do this. I’ve never worked so hard to go on vacation in my life.”

Despite achieving two world firsts it wasn’t all plain sailing for Buckingham and the rest of the team, as she reveals.

“Half-way through the first crossing I got heat stroke and the people who were in the support boat, because of the waves, had very severe travel sickness,” she said.

“We had to learn a new way to change the crew of the boat in the middle of the ocean. With four kilometres of water beneath you, you have to have the courage to jump out of the support boat, with your teammates, and manage to get two people in to a boat and two people out of a boat in ocean swells and wind waves.

“It’s certainly not what you do when you’re rowing on the Thames or something and one of the main points is to not be jumping out of the boat because you’ll break it.”

The purpose of the trip, which was made possible by FISA the sports governing body and Rowing the World a travel tour operator, was not to have their names etched into the record books but to help raise the profile of rowing in the Maldives – a country which has a historic connection with the sport.

Buckingham said: “On the last day we were welcomed back onto the beach by about 500 people, a lot of whom were school kids. All of whom were just fascinated to see these middle aged women and men, but particularly the women, and ask you questions about the boat or ask you what you’d done.

“It was great to see. One of the reasons why we went out there was to help support the Rowing Association of Maldives, which has started from pretty much nothing and is growing, and growing, and growing.

“It’s really nice to do something and, in effect, give back to the community, to women and to be the start of sustainable tourism in the Maldives.”