Nothing confuses people on the water faster than the difference between a short chop and a long swell. Both look the same in a photo: moving water. But one of them is local annoyance and the other is a message from somewhere far away. Understand the gap and you can judge a trip before you launch.
Short chop is generated by the wind blowing on the water around you now. The distance between crests is short, the time between them is short, so the surface comes up steep, tight and ugly. It hits a small boat from several directions at once.
It is rarely dangerous on height alone, but it is genuinely uncomfortable: spray in your face, a boat that will not sit still, no comfortable fishing. And it drops fast once the wind drops, because its source is right there.
A long swell has wide spacing between crests and a long gap in time. You see slow, orderly lines rolling in with a steady rhythm. That order means it has crossed a lot of water, so the energy came from a strong wind or a storm far away, not from the breeze on your face.
It looks harmless from a distance and it is the stronger of the two. It lifts the whole boat and sets it down gently, and where it breaks on shallow ground it lands with real force. It also keeps arriving long after the local wind has gone calm.
Take the swell at an angle. Do not meet it head on and do not let it hit you square on the beam. Head on means hard slams into the bow; beam on means the boat gets pushed sideways, which is a direct threat to stability.
Keep gentle way on into a long swell and ease off when the chop tightens up. In a small boat the crew gets tired before the hull does, so slow and steady wins.
When short chop sits on top of a long swell, the sea becomes confused and irregular. That is the worst case for a small boat, and the right call is to wait it out or run back along the track you came in on, slowly.
No fish is worth a confused sea. If you are asking yourself whether it is safe, the answer is usually no.
Before any trip, The B7R app gives you tides at Shuaiba and Shuwaikh, sea state, the fish guide, catch log, navigation tools and an SOS button for emergencies. Free on Google Play.