What causes the ocean waves?

It is wonderful to watch the foamy white fingers of the waves creep up and down on the beaches. On the open sea, the tossing billows plunge up and down in heaving hills sometimes 30 feet high. But all this restless up and down is merely on the surface of the sea. The deep water below pays no attention to the changing face of the sea.

Most surface waves are caused by the winds. A typhoon off Hawaii whips up wild waves that travel thousands of miles across the Pacific, perhaps to break several days later on our western shores. The trade winds drive the waves in an easterly direction around the globe. These waves lose some of their energy when they meet a land mass and sometimes a land mass forces them to turn in another direction.