In underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC), optical transmission can occur near the water surface. Therefore, the influence of water surface wave disturbance on communication performance cannot be ignored. In this study, a near-surface UOWC system is developed in a laboratory environment. The water surface wave disturbance scene is generated by fan control, and the influence of the water surface wave disturbance on the communication performance is studied. In the experiment, non-return-to-zero on-off keying (NRZ-OOK) modulation is adopted to study the influence of input light intensity and water surface wave disturbance on the bit error rate (BER) of a pseudo-random signal with a rate of 500 Mbit/s transferred in a 10 m tap water channel. The results show that the BER of the system is closely related to the input light intensity when the optical signal is transmitted near the water surface. The water surface wave disturbance has a significant impact on the quality of communication, which is related to the range of the water surface wave disturbance in the optical transmission link and also to the depth of the water surface wave disturbance. Moreover, the BER presents a certain statistical law with the range and depth of the disturbance. This statistical law has a certain guiding significance for receiving, tracking, and aiming devices of the near-water surface optical link, water-air link, and air-water link of a wireless optical communication system.