Have you actually been on the open ocean?

[Dobbs]

For me, its a 2000 mile trip west or a 1200 mile trip east to get to a beach. The great lakes LOOK like the sea but they smell like pond..... even the gulls sound different.

I know what you mean about the gulls sounding different. Here at the top of the Chesapeake Bay it's fresh water, and our gulls sound different too!

As an aside, since we are nowhere near the sea, we call them Bay gulls. Nearby is the C and D canal, which, until it was dredged into a through canal, meant we had Locks and Bay Gulls.