"Tsunami waves are nothing at all like these regular wind generated waves that normally strike the beach."

"It's caused by an earthquake many thousands of miles away and tsunami waves don't have that face and they don't have that motion of the water, all the water is moving like a flood and a flood that is filled with dangerous deadly stuff.  There is nothing you could surf.  One way you could think of a tsunami is to imagine that you're the size of one of those little white ghost crabs that you see at the beach.  Put yourself down and then look at regular size surf coming in, all you would see is probably that white water at the end of that wave that broke way offshore.  Well a tsunami wave is way out there in the deep ocean and the distance between crests can be 100 miles, not the 100 to 1000 feet that you might get with a swell but 100 miles.  And, the time between crests can be 15 minutes or more not the 15 seconds or more that you might get with regular swells.  Put yourself down as that little crab and all you're seeing is this white water as it comes toward shore and keeps coming and coming and coming.  A huge tsunami may be 6 foot tall at sea, but 100 miles long and you have to think of all that water over all that distance and all that water has got to go somewhere so when it comes back in it just surges."