cross sea

Still, they have a heavy swell to contend with, and an ugly cross sea.

Cross sea: A sea or swell caused by a wind different from that blowing at the time the cross sea is running.

By noon, however, the heavy cross-sea had abated, and the Excelsior bore west.

We drifted in upon the land in the chill light of a stormy dawn across a heartless cross-sea mountain high.

We run into a cross-sea or a swell, or something, and they disappear again, and their places at the table remain vacant.