I was born in a coast town and grew up a 45 minute drive from the sea, so I can’t remember the first time I went to the ocean. It struck me that in larger countries there may well be a sizeable portion of the population who hasn’t ever been.
So: Haven’t you ever seen the ocean (from a plane doesn’t count)? If so, do you want to go see it? Anything in particular stopping you or have you just not gotten around to it? Or are you uninterested?
I haven’t. I imagine it’s about the same as looking at Lake Michigan or Superior. A big body of water where you can’t see the opposite shore.
I am curious as to how the ocean smells. Ocean breezes are always described as scented.
The closest I’ve come to seeing/smelling the ocean is Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, which I’m told is a salt water harbor connecting to the sea. I was also told so many hair-raising stories about pollution and what not that I was afraid to touch it or even approach too closely.
Smelled sort of like a salt water aquarium, but not so nice.
Yes, I’d like to see the ocean. But I was born in St. Louis and still live thousands of miles away from the nearest ocean.
I live less than a 5 minute drive from the ocean, have a salt marsh on our property, and drive across an inlet that feeds directly into the Atlantic every day to and from work, I have seen the ocean, i see it so much that I don’t even notice it
OTOH, I haven’t seen the Great Plains, or any other large, flat expanse of land, I’d imagine it’d be much like the ocean though…
just less watery…
Ocean breezes are scented with a soft bittery-salty warm smell, I’m not synesthetic or anything but it always smells very fresh and open to me.
I grew up on the ocean, friends of mine had lobster pots at 12 years old, and we always fished on the jettys and break waters off Watch Hill, Rhode Island.
It’s not the same at all looking at the sea and looking at Lake Michigan, the lake smells completely different, and the lake actually does have another side, where the ocean does not. If I were to look across the ocean directly east from my house I’d be looking at the north west coast of Africa.
Oddly, having lived on both coasts I still have it in my brain that when I walk up a beach the ocean MUST be on my right. However, when I was in California, walking up a beach meant the ocean was on my left. Growing up in New England it’s in my blood that the ocean rests to the east.
I’m 24 and saw the ocean for the first time last summer. I had never really had or made the opportunity until that point. I think it’s the most awesome place ever and I can’t wait to return.
Entourage had a discussion about this (they’re from NY, living in LA).
What always throws me off is Santa Cruz, whose coast is to the south.
I disagree. Yes, it smells different, but they look almost identical. If you can’t see the other side, it doesn’t really matter how far away it is.
I guess there is a small mental aspect in knowing that you’re looking out over thousands of miles of water. Is that what you mean?
Even different oceans and seas don’t look alike. I grew up on the North Sea, which has a cold steely grey colour even on the brightest days, having a shallow stone-covered bed. Deep clear Atlantic waters look very different. It would not surprise me if Lake Michigan is as different again.
Sort of, it is that small mental facet that I am looking across an expanse thousands of miles across, with predictable tides, movements and energies. Lake Mich is a lake, a huge, deep lake - just as magical I’m sure - from knowing a few people who live on it, it’s quite nice.
If you stand on the ground you can NOT see the other side of Lake Michigan. It’s that wide. Really.
If it was salt instead of fresh water it would be called an inland sea. Heck, if it was in Europe it would be probably be called an inland sea.
I grew up on the Gulf, went to florida on vacation once and saw the Atlantic, and checked out the Mediterranean, as well as the Dead Sea, and the Sea of Gallilee, while i was in Israel.
My ocean is the Gulf of Mexico. It’s greenish and beautiful in its way. My other coast (I live on a peninsula) is Tampa Bay – it’s less green, more blue, but still beautiful. The Atlantic is on the other side of the state (my peninsula’s on a peninsula of its own), and it’s quite blue and a bit colder. Still beautiful.
The parts of the Caribbean Sea I’ve seen ranged from electric blue to perfectly clear. Even more beautiful.
Every large body of water I’ve seen has its own appearance. I’m sure that Lake Michigan looks different from the oceans I’ve seen, and I can almost guarantee that it smells different. I’ve never been to Lake Michigan, but I have personal experience with Lake Okeechobee (a very large body of water) and its smell is nothing like that of the ocean.
It’s a very unique and pleasant smell. It permeates through several city blocks closest to the ocean and if there’s a strong breeze you can catch a whiff of it a couple of miles onshore, it seems. I don’t spend as much time at the beach as some people, but that smell keeps coming back to my mind and calling me back home if I go too far east.
You only ever walk north? Did you have to go through Canada and then Chile to get back to your car? That must have been awfully time-consuming. 
A small mental aspect?
Maybe you and I think about these things differently, but when I look out at the ocean and contemplate the fact that it could take me to Japan on a straight shot if I had the will and/or the equipment, I am overwhelmed by the awesome power of nature to decide man’s fate. I mean, how different would life be if Tokyo were on the other side of Lake California? It blows my mind. When my great-grandfather snuck onto a cargo ship headed for the United States, he wasn’t just moving, like you do when you go from Detroit to the UP. He was destroying his world as he knew it and rebuilding an entirely new one in its place. That’s powerful stuff. No lake can do that; not to anywhere near the same extent, anyway.
Don’t flatter yourself that much. In Russia, maybe.
I live in Rhode Island, which has, I believe, the most coastline of any state per square mile, and the farthest I’ve ever lived inland is western Massachusetts. I very rarely GO to the ocean but living in western MA felt “wrong” somehow.
I lived in the Bay Area of CA for a while and the first thing I did when I got there was go see the Pacific Ocean. It was a little unsettling, Philosphr nailed it–the ocean and shore were backward! I remember being at Baker’s Beach with zyzzyva and oldscratch and a bunch of friends one night and I kept turning around and going “the sand should be THERE, not THERE!”
Small hijack, but when you were kids, did anyone else convince themselves that they could see Europe (or Asia, or wherever) on the other side of the ocean? I remember saying that I thought I saw Europe and my dad squinted and said “yeah, they’re waving hello.”
Actually, I heard inland sea calls you over there.
Or used to, anyway, until about 1992.
Yep, apparently we could see America from north-west Ireland.
He never learnt about crying wolf, however. On the ferry trip home, it was a beautiful clear day, but there was no way we would believe that you could really see England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland all at the same time.
Edit: Hostile Dialect - nice! 
I wonder what it was like for my mother, who was born in Saskatchewan, to move to Burlington, Ontario in her teens, and to see for the first time a body of water so big she couldn’t see the other side.
I remember standing on the beach at Long Beach provincial park on Vancouver Island, looking out across the water to the western horizon, and thinking, “If I go 10,000 kilometres that way, I’ll hit Japan.”