How can I make a hater understand?

Adam Davis and I got together for a rousing 100-minute paddle yesterday morning.  We met beneath the A.W. Willis Avenue bridge in the harbor, and paddled out of the harbor and up the Mississippi until we'd covered five miles; then we came back down.  Adam's G.P.S. device shows the world where we went:

As we approached the Hernando DeSoto Bridge there was a big barge rig coming upriver.  While Adam paused to take a selfie, I headed for its wake to see what kind of surfing could be had.  I'm the little speck at about two o'clock from the top of Adam's head:

Unfortunately, the pilot apparently didn't like my idea at all: he throttled down the engines, and the wake died down.  When I tried to do something on the waves that were left, he gave me about six angry blasts on his horn.  So I stopped paddling and hoped he'd be appeased and turn his attention elsewhere.

I was genuinely puzzled.  Most towboat pilots don't seem to care when I play around on their wakes.  Maybe this one was simply not aware that it's a reasonably safe thing to do for a paddler of a certain fitness and skill level.  I was never anywhere near close enough to his stern to worry about getting sucked into the screws.  Maybe the guy just doesn't like other people having fun while he's at work.

Oh well... I tried to shrug off any hurt feelings and return to the harbor feeling good about starting my weekend with ten miles in the boat.

Summer is back in the Mid South.  The Fahrenheit temperature is rising into the 90s for the first time in a surprisingly long while.  This afternoon the heat index reached triple digits, but out on the river this morning it didn't seem too bad yet.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I went out onto the river hoping to find some friendlier towboat pilots.  But the river was deserted, so I just paddled steady and enjoyed the sunshine.

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