Swimming with Bogart

 I get to the beach once or twice a week, usually with Katrinka. We walk there and I go right in and swim and she walks way down and back and goes in for a while. We try to go when the water's high enough, within a few hours of high tide, within two is best, but often the opportunity arises beyond optimum tide time. And then I can usually swim anyway. We're inside the reef and the depth is fairly constant all the way to the reef after gradually deepening from the shoreline. But there are some areas that are deeper of course and that's where I head when it's low, frequently backstroking till I get to a place where I can do the Aussie crawl. It really is like a crawl with me cause my left arm won't lift high  A few days ago we went there and it really was low. Too low. The only place I could swim, the level  was down so that I was swimming in pretty heavy seaweed. But I wanted to get some movement going so I back stroked along in it which was good exercise because the seaweed was an impediment. After a while it got exhausting and was a little creepy so I headed in to shore. Had to walk the last hundred feet or so cause it was so shallow. I was itching all over, like if I'd been in fresh cut grass without much clothes' on.  And there was all this seaweed slime on me, black and gooey. It didn't really wipe off. Had to pick each one off . I started looking at it more carefully and I noticed it was moving just a little and that the pieces moved a little in the water and then I realized I was covered in little black slimy worms. So I picked them all off but they kept appearing on my legs and torso coming off my swim wear. If there aren't many people around which is normal in Covid time, I swim in dark briefs , like some minimal European male swim shorts. Katrinka came up and checked my back and they kept coming for a while but finally stopped. All the while I was thinking of Bogey in African Queen.