Explain the direction of waves on sea shore Why do waves on the seashore move towards the shore even when the tide is going out?
 A: Waves are generated by wind. But aside from small local winds, most of the waves you see at the shore are generated by stronger winds far out on the sea from where they start to propagate into all kinds of directions.
Imagine a point in the middle of the sea where waves with different directions are created. They will propagate away from this point until they hit ashore, therefore they can only move towards the shore not away from it.
This is also why waves always break towards the shore and not away from it. Waves in deep water are more or less circular waves which will go unhindered until the ground is too shallow for the circular motion to go on. See here:

A: Suppose it was the other way round. In that case, the waves would be starting at the coastline. And suppose these waves would be caused by wind as are "normal" waves.
The wind pattern, in this case, would have to be very specific! But, let's assume. As the waves reach outward, they will, instead of growing smaller, grow bigger.
Suppose the sea has a circular coastline. What will happen at the center of the sea...? An enormous spike of rising water would appear. I'm sure you've never seen that.
In principle, though it's possible that sea waves travel from the shore outward. The tide has nothing to do with this.
