Kayaks -Lake Rotoiti

It has been an eventful day... full of earthquake events, large and small.
The day started with a bang around 7.20am when an earthquake of around 5.5 occurred off the coast near Seddon. This small town is around 20 minutes' drive south from Blenheim. Of course the earthquake being in Cook Strait affected Wellington more than here.
Despite this event a crowd of Camera Club members headed west up the Wairau Valley for a field trip to Lake Rotoiti. It was a lovely warm sunny balmy day at the lake and we had a good time making fun and photographs.
There was a group of Kayakers from Wellington getting organised for an overnight trip to the head of the lake. Here they are rafted up just so we could photograph them. I did tell them that they would appear on the internet tonight. But I don't think they believed me.
Anyway, off they paddled, totally oblivious of the dozens of aftershocks being experienced in the Seddon, Cook Strait and Wellington area. Unless they have cell phone coverage and the GeoNetQuake apps on their iPhones they will be unaware of the very nasty 6.5 quake that occurred at 5.09 pm.
I had only just arrived home and was walking through the front door as that quake happened. Daughter M and her Dad vainly struggled to clamber under the heavy oak dining table but two chairs were in their way. I grabbed granddaughter E and stood with her in the front doorway. It was VERY scary. Since then we have been fielding texts and phone-calls checking up on us. We have had helpful advice from family living in Christchurch....They have been through worse than us by far.
Wellington is more badly affected that we are. M's partner reports that their house is OK......Just had another shake..... Scary.
We are battening down the hatches for the night now...so over and out!