Me too. I grew up in Ocean Grove, aptly named!!
Of course, in Australia all of the capitals (except THE capital) are located on the coastal fringe which means that 90% of the population live within coo-ee of an ocean beach. All those poor schmucks in the rest of the land-locked world have to suffer.
Yeah, the Black Sea doesn’t have any appreciable waves, at least when I was there. It looks…a lot like Lake Michigan. I LOVE Lake Michigan, by the way. When I first moved to Chicago, I got lost a lot (I have a terrible sense of direction) and usually I’d end up wandering around until I ran into a familiar landmark, or an el stop. (I was afraid to get on a bus and end up god knows where.) A lot of the time, the familiar landmark would be the lake. And it always just raised my spirits to see it, and know that it was there.
I grew up by the Pacific and agree that the ocean is not quite the same as one of the Great Lakes. To me, it’s wilder and more dangerous and more exciting. But knowing that Lake Michigan isn’t full of sharks and probably won’t hit me with a tsunami doesn’t mean I don’t love it any less. 
How strange. I was going to start a thread on this topic myself.
I live in the UK, where it’s not possible to be more than 70 miles from the sea, and I live within walking (well, a decent hike, possible in a day) distance of the south coast. I’d be really interested to know if there’s any UK doper that hasn’t been to the seaside (I doubt there will be)
I have the same problem. For now, the large body of water in my area is to my north, which really screws up my internal navigator.
But what bothers me about all the people talking about the Great Lakes being like the ocean, is that for me they aren’t all that similar. Part of it is that I like exploring tidal basins. (When I was out in California driving up US 1, I stopped to explore one of the rock beaches, and got hugely homesick when I finally figured out that I was the only person on that beach who was looking for horseshoe crab shells. Heck, I think some of the kids I asked if they’d seen any still believe that I was trying to see if they’d believe there were such a thing…) The ecology of a salt water shore is different from that in the Great Lakes. Which isn’t too surprising, the ecologies of many salt bodies of water are unique. The Caribbean really can get that amazing blue, and it’s a very different color than the Mediterranean Sea has. Boston Harbor has some similarities to Baltimore Harbor, but there are differences too. And not just the aroma.
OK, I think where the train went off the rails was when someone said a lake isn’t like the ocean because you can’t see the other side of the ocean but you can see the other side of a lake. To which I replied you can’t see the other side of Lake Michigan (or several other of the Great Lakes) so in that way the Great Lakes are like the ocean, which is not to say they are like the ocean in any other way. For example, oceans and tides. The Great Lakes have tides, too, but they’d be measured in a couple inches at most and are essentially imperceptible to humans. This impacts structures along the shore in that you don’t have to worry about high/low tide lines on the Lakes. And yes, they smell different. But the initial visual snapshot - a huge body of water that goes on and on and on to the horizon - is, indeed, very similar to the ocean. If someone who grew up near the Great Lakes confronts the ocean for the first time that sight - water going on forever - will not be novel or necessarily the first thing that strikes them as very different. Such a person might latch on to the smell or the difference in color or some other characteristic as being the “first ocean experience”.
Oh, I am SO a fan of large bodies of water. Go water, go! yay! 
The Lake Michigan thing is kind of wierd. The first time I saw it was from an airplane, and I could easily see both sides at the same time. So when finally saw it from the ground, even though I couldn’t see the other side, I ‘felt’ approximately where it was, and could imagine it.
The Ocean on the other hand, particularly the Pacific, I can’t just stand on the beach and feel the other side, cause I haven’t seen them both at the same time, so the feeling is much more “Wow”.
I’ve grown up in south Florida my entire life. I’m not a beach person, but have never been more than 20 minutes away from the Atlantic. My ex (from Chicago) thought going to the beach would be similar to “the lake”. Hell no. She loves the beach (this was South Beach in Miami). When her brother came to visit, he was shocked. The water was crystal clear and salty. Plus, you could swim in the water and not freeze to death. Oh, and South Beach is a topless beach as well (he REALLY enjoyed that part).
I remember as a kid going to the beach on vacation how incredibly awesome the moment is when the ocean comes into view. I still love that.
I was born in Sydney, Australia, and when aged two moved with my family to England. Back then, you did that by ship, so at the age of two I would have seen the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans from the deck of a ship, though I can’t remember that at all.
And yes, lakes are different from oceans. The smell is different, because salt from the ocean gets into the air, and the waves are different, because in general waves are bigger the further they have travelled. (So waves on the east coast of Australia are bigger than waves on the east coast of England, becaue the Pacific is much bigger than the North Sea.)
I’ve lived in Florida most of my life but on the Gulf. I didn’t see the Atlantic until I was in my 20’s.
I probably saw a Great Lake or two as a small child when we lived in Wisconsin and Ohio but I don’t remember that.
I’ve haven’t seen the Pacific or any other oceans yet.
I spent the first 18 years of my life in eastern Massachusetts, and saw the ocean often – Boston Harbor; Massachusetts Bay; outer Cape Cod, etc. I also spent a summer in Virginia Beach and have visited southern California.
The next 13 years of my life I lived in Chicago, and most of that time within 1 mile of Lake Michigan (for some time I lived within 200 yards of the lake). It did look and smell different, but was also very beautiful (especially when it got icy).
Now, I live far inland, hundreds of miles from a large body of water. I feel kind of… I don’t know, claustraphobic, not having that big body of water. I feel like someone could sneak up behind me because there is no direction in which there is a big barrier. It’s also harder to remember my east/west direction, because I always used to equate east with “toward the water.”
I’ve always lived in Florida; for the first ten years, I was only ten minutes away from the Atlantic, so yes, I’ve seen the ocean.
It was only a few years ago that I crossed Montana and Washington while on a trip, and saw a whole lot of nothing, all in the same place. It completely blew my mind. I still think it’s the most amazing thing ever…flat snow in all directions as far as I could see. It made me want to just start walking. Walking and finding nothing for a long time…how cool would that be? (Okay, maybe not so cool in practice, but I felt it).
I saw the ocean when I was a kid - I know I saw the Atlantic because we went to Hilton Head once on vacation and we’ve been to Florida too. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the Pacific ocean though - I’ve been to Mexico with my grandparents and stayed near the “Sea of Cortez” but I don’t know where that is in relation to the Pacific (and frankly don’t care enough to go look it up.)
No, they still have to be salty. At least in Spanish.
For those who’ve seen both: are the Great Lakes the same colors as the sea? In movies they look kind’a brownish or grey, never seen one where you got those blues and greens. The sea gets brown and grey and green and blue and stripes and… yeah, even the one Dad used to refer to as “the bathtube,” having grown up bathing in the Cantabric rather than our li’l tame Mediterranean.
I live about half-way between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve also had my toesies in the Pacific, once. Was in California on a business trip and it was freakin’ cold and misty weather, but I took off my boots and socks, rolled up my jeans, and headed out to get my toes wet. I’ll do the same if I ever get a chance at the Great Lakes, assuming it’s not freezing at the time.
That’s not necessarily a characteristic of oceans, just the Atlantic. The Pacific Ocean is cold as all get-out.
A few years ago I went to San Francisco and we crossed the Marin Headlands thingie and I got to wade in the Pacific. I also went swimming off the National Seashore in Washington State (which was nice and chilly).
On the east coast, I would have seen it at Atlantic City, and when I went to see pals in Narragansett. I’m looking forward to seeing the Atlantic from Maine someday.
Am I reading this right? You live in NH/VT, but haven’t been to the coast of Maine? Not that I’m giving you a hard time, but I just associate those places as being very close together.
My wife and I spent a month on Mt Desert Island, in a house that was right on the water. I highly, highly recommend a trip to that part of the world. Since we took our dog, I drove from Atlanta to Southwest Harbor, stopping anywhere I thought might be interesting. There is a two-lane road that goes right up the coast of Maine that was a ton of fun to drive. Granted, you had to hop over on a different road to actually see the water most of the time, but I saw some great sights and ate some delicious food.
Hmmm. I grew up on the ocean and have stood on the shore of Lake Michigan, and while it’s incredible to think that tankers have been lost in there, it didn’t look anything like an ocean or the ocean to me. The shore itself–where the water met the sand–looked different. The appearance of the water was nothing like the ocean I grew up with. It wasn’t the same color, it didn’t move the same. The little waves lapping up didn’t even sound the same. I don’t remember what it smelled like. But maybe if I hadn’t know it wasn’t the ocean I would not have thought of any of this.
On a tangent, the first time I saw warm ocean water, where you could just walk in and not have to “get used to it”–Florida as opposed to New England–I was bowled over. Walking into that water was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.