How do waves always go in the direction of the shore, and what happens in the middle ground between the two directions? (lets say there is a sea with 2 lands on either side)

Question

When you look at a beach, the waves are always coming in the direction of the shore. On the other side of the shore, the waves are also coming in the direction of the land that’s opposite the one you’re on. Is there a middle ground in-between these wave directions where the waves are just flat and not going in either direction? Im from poland looking at the beach rn. Sweden is 170km away on the other side of the sea. the waves are coming in the direction of both shores. HOW? what happens in between the two shores, how do they just change directions. please help

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

Surface waves are caused by wind, and since wind usually blows from the sea towards the land, that’s the direction waves go. If you were to sail from Poland to Sweden, what you’d see is a while after leaving Poland, the waves would stop moving uniformly towards the land and would become a little more chaotic, doing whatever the wind happened to be doing. After a while longer you’d enter a zone where the prevailing winds are now moving towards Sweden, and the waves would be moving in that direction.