Working the job not letting the job work me

Last Wednesday was the lowest tide of the year. I was able to talk the higher ups at the police dept into letting me take a friend along in the ATV. My friend Howard is a Naturalist. He came with me to show me all the cool life that can be seen during a low tideI went from never having seen a Sea Star(commonly known as a Sea Fish) to having seen about 50.. I wore flip-flops(like always) while we walked along slick slippery rocks. I ended up biting it on a large rock. So, after Howard and I had walked a ways out on the slick rocks I tried to be smart and walk back to the shore on a sandbar. The sandbar eventually stopped and I tried to wade through what I thought was shallow water. It turned out I made my walk back to shore twice as hard as my walk out. I had to walk through nearly chest high water on top of slick rock with a huge amount of sea weed pulling me down. When I finally arrived to the shore with Howard and a couple that wanted tomake sure I didn't die(although who would they have called to save me? I'm the beach patrol.) were standing there watching me. I could feel my legs getting slashed open on the rocks, but it was so cold that it didn't really hurt. When I came out of the water I started to bleed everywhere. Howard and I walked back to the ATV I was muddy and bloody. There were a bunch of school children near by so Howard brought over a sun star to show them. I came with him and acted as if I didn't notice that my leg was completely red from the blood. .
I can only hope the children learned as much about sea stars that day as I did. And that they will remember that day as the day they saw a boat wreck survior walk onto the beach-not just some crazy stubborn lady who took the worst possible route to the beach.