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To some experts this is just another word for swell, to others it means swell that is starting to touch the bottom. However you will still be able to find sheltered water without waves in a harbour, an estuary or under the lee of a headland. The longer the wavelength, the faster it travels and the more it will rear up on entering shallow water. When swell reaches shallow water it will create breaking waves. Unless it encounters a strong wind or current going the other way, it does not steepen and break in deep water. In calm conditions it does not create any foam or turbulence on the surface. Swell on its own is no problem at all for sea kayakers. As each green wave goes past you, the surface of the water goes up and down but the water itself does not go anywhere. Swell consists of energy moving though the water. A really big swell may not be very high but its wavelength of hundreds of feet will give you a hint of vertigo and a proper feeling of your own insignificance as each wave passes beneath you. It consists of parallel lines of waves, all travelling in the same direction and seldom more than 6 feet high in sea kayaking waters, but with a distance between crests (the wavelength) that may be 100 feet or more.

Swell characteristically exhibits a more regular and longer period and has flatter crests than waves within their fetch". Swell is defined by the IHO Hydrographic Dictionary as " ocean waves which have travelled out of their generating area. It has a very long wavelength which enables it to travel hundreds of miles outside the fetch. Its slope is too shallow and it travels too fast, often at over 20 knots. Even a fast sea kayak is seldom able to catch and surf swell out at sea. Swell was created by mid-ocean winds blowing consistently in the same direction for a long period. Take a few hard forward paddle strokes to accelerate and you will be surfing on the next wave.

Wait until the back of your kayak sinks down and it feels as if you are paddling in molasses. If you are in a fast sea kayak and you want to travel in the same direction as wind-generated waves, you can make your trip more fun and possibly faster. If the wind changes they soon fade out and cancel each other out. Waves directly created by local winds are steep and a short distance apart (short wavelength). After a day of Force 5 winds there will be quite large waves downwind of any open water more than a mile wide. The area over which it blows while doing so is technically known as the fetch.

The wind needs both time and distance to create large waves. Nearly all waves are created by wind blowing over water, and they travel in about the same direction as the wind which created them.