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Physics says that wave does not transport material. The following animation (taken from this site) shows all particles just do simple harmonic motion.

enter image description here

I read an article saying that a Japanese's soccer ball traveled from Japan to Alaska.

APRIL 19, 2012 -- More than a year and thousands of miles later, a soccer ball washed away during the Japan tsunami has turned up on a remote Alaskan island and eventually could be headed back to the Japanese school grounds it originally came from.

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What caused the ball to get transported to Alaska?

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  • $\begingroup$ The answer might depend on what "wave...transport material" means. As Brent Meeker said, winds and currents probably are more significant than waves in the story of the soccer ball, but you could also have asked, "How can waves propel a surfer?" I don't have time to fully explore that question, but I can point out that the particles in your diagram are particles of water, and a surfer is not a particle of water. $\endgroup$
    – Solomon Slow
    Commented May 31, 2019 at 13:15

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There are currents in the ocean which are driven by heat input differences between tropical and polar waters. These are analogous to prevailing winds, except that they are obstructed and deflected by land masses: https://www.oceanblueproject.org/ocean-current-maps.html

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Physics does not say that waves do not transport material. Nonlinear waves do transport mass which, at second order, is called Stokes Drift.

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