Is it an Ocean?

April 4, 2018 5:47 PM

For the purpose of "seeing the ocean", does the Gulf of Mexico count?

Herr Vortex has never seen the ocean. We are thinking of going to Louisiana next year, where he says he will "see the ocean for the first time". He says that the Atlantic Ocean includes the Gulf of Mexico, therefore, by looking at the Gulf he is looking at the ocean. I say that he's looking at a gulf, not the ocean.

Ignoring hydrology and geologic science and all that technical stuff: does seeing the Gulf of Mexico count as "seeing the ocean", in the "I have seen the ocean" sense?

Thank you.

posted by Elly Vortex to Human Relations (59 answers total)

I say yes. But where in Louisiana? There aren’t really beaches there.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:48 PM on April 4, 2018

Response by poster: Grand Isle.
posted by Elly Vortex at 5:50 PM on April 4, 2018

If the water tastes salty, you are drinking the/a ocean. If it's not salty, it's a lake (edit: or a river I suppose). So, yes.
posted by GuyZero at 5:51 PM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

For sure. I lived in Tampa (on the gulf side) and when I went to the beach I didn’t consider it any different than going to the beaches further up the east coast that border the Atlantic. There are differences in terms of weather patterns etc, but gulfs are largely connected to an ocean and act sort of like huge bays.
posted by DoubleLune at 5:53 PM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Wikipedia suggests that it is a marginal sea, which is a subdivision of an ocean. I'd say that's good enough for me to count it as "seeing the ocean".

<pedant>Counterpoint to GuyZero: The Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea are not oceans, but lakes, and have salt water.</pedant>
posted by Aleyn at 5:54 PM on April 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

oh yeah and mono lake. true
posted by GuyZero at 5:55 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yes, but only if you buy some salt water taffy.
posted by Napoleonic Terrier at 5:57 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Yes - my first view of the ocean was also the Gulf of Mexico. Later views of the Atlantic from the east coast were not strikingly different from that first experience, just colder.
posted by bunderful at 6:06 PM on April 4, 2018

I'd say yes, especially if you're somewhere like Panama City, but if

There aren’t really beaches there.

... I'd have to re-assess my yes. Does your stretch of the Gulf have waves? Isn't a lot of Louisiana's coast marshy swampland?
posted by Rash at 6:09 PM on April 4, 2018

Response by poster: Dangit!
posted by Elly Vortex at 6:13 PM on April 4, 2018

I'd say it counts, yes. Like bunderful says, it's just not that different from the east coast views.
posted by Jacen at 6:17 PM on April 4, 2018

If a National Oceanic and Atmospheric expedition photographs it from a ship called the "Okeanos Explorer" and sends back crazy pictures of tentacles, then yes, I would say it counts as ocean.
posted by selfmedicating at 6:20 PM on April 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Are there tides, open salt water, and possibly sharks? It's the ocean.
posted by VelveteenBabbitt at 6:25 PM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

It's at least as much "the ocean" as the Mediterranean is.

Also, some Google Maps satellite/street viewing suggests there is beach there. I did not know that. The journey to Grand Isle...will really illustrate the word "tenuous".
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:26 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: As a geologist, I could go into a 20 paragraph passionate defense of the GoM as the ocean. But is what you are looking for is sort of the poetics of viewing the ocean? Like how there is nothing between you and the far horizon and the sense of untameable wildness that is not entirely understood and is somewhat unpredictable - and while ripe with mysteries, excitement, and danger, at the same time you feel connected to the planet in a way that's really hard to describe. It makes you feel insignificant, but not in a bad way - like you can get out of your own self for a moment. And sometimes you can get that kind of view looking over a large inland sea or lake, but it lacks the feeling the ocean gives you. So in that sense, I'd say yes. And I could also argue that you haven't seen the ocean until you've felt the power of waves that have come all the way from the southern reaches of the entire Pacific booming into your bones while at the tip of the Hawaii archipelago; that you haven't seen it until you've snorkeled over a coral reef in calm, clear water anywhere in the tropics; or until you've experienced a storm in the North Atlantic. (I'm not arguing that, though.) In other words, there's just as many ocean viewing experiences as one can imagine, and the Gulf of Mexico, though it may seem tame, possesses just as much raw power as any of the other oceanic places we can imagine when we think of "the ocean" (ask anyone who has experienced a hurricane). (And the geologist in me has to add that you would be looking at one of the oldest parts of the entire Atlantic.) So for your purposes, there's a possible argument a place like the Gulf of Aden wouldn't "count" (for you, not me), but the GoM definitely does.

And there are LOTS of places where the ocean touches land that doesn't have a beach. A beach is not a requirement. Embrace the many amazing varieties of ecology/geography where ocean meets land! But Grand Isle is a barrier island - I'm pretty confident there will be beaches somewhere.
posted by barchan at 6:30 PM on April 4, 2018 [67 favorites]

Yes it counts, but if you want actual, legit beach you're going to be disappointed. Can you at least get over to Mississippi to the beaches there? Still not the prettiest, but better than Grand Isle.
posted by mccxxiii at 6:30 PM on April 4, 2018

All oceans, seas, gulfs etc that are not landlocked [e.g. Caspian sea] are part of the contiguous world ocean.

To suggest otherwise is similar to suggesting that a person who visits [say] Denver has never been to the U.S.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 6:39 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

My first experience of ocean was Buzzards' Bay in Massachusetts, which is way more of an enclosed space than the Gulf of Mexico.

It counts.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:44 PM on April 4, 2018

I actually just came back in from a walk along the Gulf of Mexico. It sure felt like the ocean to me. I'd rather be here than the stretch of the Atlantic in my home state.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:09 PM on April 4, 2018

There are beaches at Grand Isle. I camped on one last weekend. There are waves, and tides, and according to the flags, dangerous sea life. There are pelicans and terns and plovers. It counts.
posted by CheeseLouise at 7:26 PM on April 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

As a born beach rat, I'm gonna be a rebel and say no. If there aren't thousands of miles from where you stand to another continent, it is not The Ocean. Nor is the Mediterranean (a sea!) or the San Francisco Bay. They are still lovely bodies of water but nope.
posted by dame at 8:08 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I say yes if you can't see the other side. And if it's not, like, Lake Ponchartrain.
posted by asperity at 8:14 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sorry, no.
posted by notyou at 8:18 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Lake Pontchartrain has sharks and you can't get much more oceanic than that. And you can't see land past the horizon, which produces the feeling of joy that the ocean alone can give. Despite its name, I believe it is technically a bay.
I am biased in favor of the Gulf; I grew up not far away, I want to be buried there. It is definitely the World Ocean.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:19 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

If it has a bridge over it, it's not the ocean. Gulf of Mexico, yes, ocean. Lake Ponchartrain, no. Pacific Ocean in the most recent season of Bojack Horseman, no (at least not between California and Hawaii.)
posted by asperity at 8:27 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Wikipedia page on borders of the oceans point out that the International Hydrographic Organization defines the Atlantic Ocean specifically to exclude marginal seas like the Gulf of Mexico, but other mapmakers (like the CIA) might specifically include these areas.

Obviously there are multiple ways to define this but the International Hydrographic Organization is the only authoritative international source on this problem. Everything I've seen from the USGS or U.S. Board of Geographic Names is consistent with them following this definition but I don't have time to actually set up a system to display their shapefile.
posted by grouse at 8:56 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

If there aren't thousands of miles from where you stand to another continent, it is not The Ocean.

Well it looks like Barranquilla, Colombia is 1420 nautical miles SE of New Orleans, so... I think it still counts!

Additionally Sinaloa, Mexico is 5000+ nautical miles from Dakar, Senegal. With the right angle from the east coast of Mexico, you should have views straight to western Africa (Morocco/Mauritania, likely) that would be in the thousands, even subtracting the width of the land mass between the W. and E. coasts of Mexico.

This is assuming you're aiming to not have your view include Cuba or Puerto Rico. If you're willing to write them off as islands and assume "islands" (of which there are many in The Ocean) "don't count" than you'll have a lot more viewing options!
posted by jrobin276 at 9:17 PM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Grew up in southern Louisiana and can confirm that it totally counts as the ocean.
posted by bradbane at 9:33 PM on April 4, 2018

I'd say yes. I'd even go so far as to say places like Vancouver, BC are on the ocean.

Huffy Puffy: "It's at least as much "the ocean" as the Mediterranean is.
"

However I wouldn't consider the Mediterranean as part of the Atlantic; do people consider the Mediterranean a part of the Atlantic?
posted by Mitheral at 10:11 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

grouse: "The Wikipedia page on borders of the oceans point out that the International Hydrographic Organization defines the Atlantic Ocean specifically to exclude marginal seas like the Gulf of Mexico, but other mapmakers (like the CIA) might specifically include these areas."

Looking at the other maps they exclude huge swaths of shore line that I'd bet any American layperson would consider ocean. Like the entire East Coast of Australia, almost the entirety of Canada's West Coast (only the West shore line of the Queen Charlottes) and about 2/3rds of the East Coast of Japan
posted by Mitheral at 10:21 PM on April 4, 2018

He can say he saw the see, and you both still have lots to look forward to.
posted by amtho at 10:53 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I grew up in Hawaii, which could not be more surrounded by ocean if it tried, and I say the Gulf counts.
posted by rtha at 11:09 PM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

However I wouldn't consider the Mediterranean as part of the Atlantic; do people consider the Mediterranean a part of the Atlantic?
No, it's the Mediterranean Sea, not the Mediterranean Ocean, and not part of the Atlantic, though it is part of the continuous Ocean.
I'd say the Gulf is ocean, though.
But whatever.
posted by mumimor at 12:45 AM on April 5, 2018

If there aren't thousands of miles from where you stand to another continent, it is not The Ocean

Nonsense, I can see France from much of the south coast of England but the English Channel is still part of the ocean.
posted by tinkletown at 2:42 AM on April 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

In my limited experience, I would say no.
I get the ocean here in NYC at the Rockaway Beaches, and I get the ocean on Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Mexico, but when I went into the GOM, it seemed much different to me...even with beaches (this is from Isla Holbox POV in Mexico) there just wasn't the waves and the sounds of the waves crashing, which is what makes an ocean an ocean to me. But that's just my interpretation.
I think it's totally up to what aspect of the ocean is important to you.
posted by newpotato at 4:20 AM on April 5, 2018

If you want it to be...

I’d say no, personally. I live on a bay that has all the things people are mentioning upthread, like salt and tides, but it’s not ocean (and I’d say the same for the English Channel). Even the strait the bay opens on to isn’t the ocean. It’s “the sea”, in that it’s connected to all the other sea, but it’s still protected by nearby land. To me, ocean means the unfathomably large stretches of water that join continents, and upon which I would never (personally, voluntarily) sail.
posted by pompomtom at 5:18 AM on April 5, 2018

I've lived on the east coast and midwest all my life and never got to the west coast until well into grown-ass adulthood. On my first visit to the Bay Area I felt compelled to experience Pacific waters firsthand, so one night after dinner and drinks I had my (very patient) hosts stop on the ocean side of the San Francisco peninsula (near Beach Chalet) so I could run down the beach and soak one canvas tennis shoe-clad foot in the Pacific Ocean. I figure most people would have been content with the view and maybe taking a photo.

So what I'm saying is it depends on what you need in terms of experiencing an ocean; it's something you have to decide for yourself.
posted by ardgedee at 6:03 AM on April 5, 2018

I grew up on Long Island Sound which I internally assumed was 'the ocean' until I went to Virginia and was soundly knocked on my ass by a real wave. I feel like a sense of untamedness is necessary for 'the ocean' as a sensation, as well as non-enclosedness - that is, you can't drive around the ocean.
posted by cobaltnine at 6:03 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

the gulf is the ocean, the med is a sea, some people in this thread are weird and they know who they are.
posted by poffin boffin at 6:38 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

the gulf is the ocean, the med is a sea

The Gulf has two openings to the Atlantic Ocean, but otherwise the difference between the Yucatan Channel and Florida Straits and the Straits of Gibraltar is one of degree and not kind.

some people in this thread are weird and they know who they are.

Represent!
posted by grouse at 6:54 AM on April 5, 2018

If it's salt water, has tides, and freely intermixes with the open ocean, then yes, it's the ocean.
posted by 256 at 7:06 AM on April 5, 2018

Nor is the Mediterranean (a sea!) or the San Francisco Bay.

I agree on SF Bay. Being on the east side of the city facing the bay is much different than being on the west side of the city facing the ocean. Some of is this is psychological, I think - for example if you're sitting at the Ferry Building looking out over the bay, you can see a bridge. Oceans don't have bridges.

Similarly for other enclosed bodies of water that are connected to the ocean (so at least Puget Sound, Long Island Sound, Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay). In the Delaware Bay case, the Jersey coast has tried to brand itself as "the other Jersey Shore" which just says to me that they're not the real, ocean-facing Jersey Shore.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:14 AM on April 5, 2018

I say yes if you can't see the other side. And if it's not, like, Lake Ponchartrain.

By this theory, the Great Lakes are oceans, sans the salt and sharks.

I'm on the "It's Not The Ocean" train. (or boat in this case?) I've looked out over the Oceans and over many Not-Oceans. There is a difference, poetic or otherwise.
posted by RhysPenbras at 8:07 AM on April 5, 2018

Response by poster: Okay, so Herr Vortex and I aren't the only two people to have differing views on this. I used to live right next to Lake Superior, and we spent a lot of time on the shore. Herr Vortex says that seeing the ocean would be like seeing Lake Superior: you stand on the shore and can't see the other side. I say "no, dude, it's so very different." How is it different? Is it the salt water? Is it the presence of ocean animals? It...just...is. I can't explain it but it is. There's a vastness and an insignificiant-ness that is part of the ocean alone. Lake Superior is great but it's a whole nother experience than seeing the ocean.

We both agree that a beach is not necessary for ocean-viewing. However, being able to actually touch and smell the water (on a beach, on a rocky shore, off a pier, spray in our faces from waves crashing below) would be important.

We take a lot of road trips and get into plenty of debates: is cereal soup? Are the Black Hills mountains, or are they only mountains until you see the Rockies? Are hot dogs sandwiches? This is the first one in which we have both dug our heels in, and I think it's because we're literally speaking two different languages. His being technical, mine being poetic. So we'll go see the Gulf of Mexico and it'll be great, but I'll save his "Joe's First Ocean View" trophy for when we go to the Atlantic or Pacific.

I've "best answered" Barchan's comment above because she managed to argue both his side and mine, in a way that we both could point at it and go "See? Barchan agrees with me!".
posted by Elly Vortex at 8:24 AM on April 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

I would say the exact opposite re: reasoning.

You're being technical: the Gulf is not, physically, the Ocean.

He's being poetic: the Gulf sure as shit *feels* like the ocean.

If it's a bucket list thing, he gets to adjudicate whether or not he's satisfied.
posted by notsnot at 8:34 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

So having stood on the shore of Lake Superior it's as much or more of the ocean feeling than standing on the southern shore of PEI staring at Nova Scotia over the Northumberland Strait which is very much the ocean. So yeah, YMMV.
posted by GuyZero at 9:05 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I will agree that logically, the gulf is the ocean and "counts" on a technical level but emotionally speaking, there is something else about standing on the edge of a continent and knowing that we've seen maps and the Gulf is semi-enclosed by land makes us experience it differently.

I am also very fond of the Great Lakes and as a Midwesterner they scratch 90% of that ocean itch, but you're right, it's something else. For me it is partly that salty air (lake air is lovely and fresh, but ocean air is like AW YISSSS) and partly, as you say, a vast reminder that 70% of this planet is alien to us and isn't that scary and awesome at the same time.

I am one of those people that will happily sit or stroll an ocean beach for hours doing absolutely nothing. It's hokey but it's the closest thing to the "oneness" that Star Wars describes the Force being that I've ever felt. You are both an insignificant speck and because of that, you are more aware of your self and your thoughts and the little universe of your life than you are anywhere else.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:12 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

> I used to live right next to Lake Superior, and we spent a lot of time on the shore. Herr Vortex says that seeing the ocean would be like seeing Lake Superior: you stand on the shore and can't see the other side. I say "no, dude, it's so very different." How is it different? Is it the salt water? Is it the presence of ocean animals? It...just...is. I can't explain it but it is. There's a vastness and an insignificiant-ness that is part of the ocean alone. Lake Superior is great but it's a whole nother experience than seeing the ocean.

I'm with you. I am not putting down the profundity of a lake as vast and deep as Lake Superior, but the pull of the open ocean feels very different to me. (Confirmed as Feeling Very Different by my niece, who grew up in MN.)

And it's not just the salt water or the possibility of sharks. I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay and lived at its mouth for many years -- the mouth of the bay is HUGE and has strong distinct tides and is salt water. It's still different than the ocean to me.
posted by desuetude at 9:41 AM on April 5, 2018

Can you at least get over to Mississippi to the beaches there? Still not the prettiest, but better than Grand Isle.

I'd even say Gulf Shores AL, for blueish water and sugary beaches. Unless you take the boat out to Ship Island.

The first time I saw a Great Lake I thought how much it reminded me of the Gulf Coast, except cold, with no sharks and no waves, and cool rocks. But it's not the same at all.

An Atlantic beach is a different experience, and even as you go down the FL coastline there are slight differences in beach appearance, dunes, waves, plants, algae, bird populations, and sea life.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:05 AM on April 5, 2018

There will be waves at Grand Isle. They won’t be big surfing waves, but they’ll be there. Also, since it’s a small barrier island, you will be able to walk across and look at the bay side (though there’s another little barrier island next to it) and Gulf side and compare.

You should probably expect the water to be brownish instead of blue. Just so you know. That’s not specifically a Gulf vs. ocean thing; it depends on where in the Gulf you are.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:30 AM on April 5, 2018

Waves are really different in lakes, even huge lakes from in oceans. And even big seas like the Mediterranean don't have that great pulse. And IMO, the waves in the Gulf qualify as ocean waves. It's like they have a special breath, undeterred from whatever else is going on around them.
posted by mumimor at 11:40 AM on April 5, 2018

Please feel free to memail me if you have any questions about Grand Isle or what meat markets to stop at on the way. It's one of my favorite places and I hope you love it too!
posted by CheeseLouise at 12:16 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Like rtha, I also grew up in Hawaii, but for me the Gulf doesn't count.

I once had friends visit who had never swam outside of the Gulf (or pools). They all claimed to understand the ocean very well, and yet there were several near-drowning incidents that clearly demonstrated that they didn't understand the power it could have. To me, that power is what makes it the ocean (in the poetic sense).

I think that the experience of looking out at the Gulf is more like looking out over Lake Superior than it is like looking out over the Pacific or Atlantic.
posted by dadaclonefly at 2:32 PM on April 5, 2018

It's different from Lake Superior because in the Gulf shit like this happens.
posted by saladin at 6:48 PM on April 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

saladin - thank you for sharing that, it is breath-taking every time.
posted by RhysPenbras at 6:37 AM on April 6, 2018

The Gulf will give you the sound and smells and critters, sure, but only an ocean will give you its profound indifference.
posted by whuppy at 2:47 PM on April 6, 2018

I've tried another criterion, but the answer remains unclear to me.

What would it take to cross it?

If you wanted to go from Louisiana to Caracas directly, sure, you'd want to do it in something oceanworthy. However, you could also make the trip in a patio boat if you stuck to the coast.

Sorry, but you're going to have to determine this empirically. Please keep us posted.

PS: Native Atlantic coaster here, but if you want to fry their circuits ocean-wise, I suggest a sunset from high up the cliffs in Del Mar, CA. Worked for me.
posted by whuppy at 2:58 PM on April 6, 2018

I'm a lifelong eastcoaster, swears by open Atlantic beaches, live on an island. This is a tough one, especially since I jumped in the Gulf of Mexico last fall and it felt different from the ocean swimming I'm accustomed to. The water felt thinner and lighter somehow, and the grey sand was just wrong. This was near Venice, Florida.

Nevertheless the Gulf is big enough and salty enough to mean ocean to most humans. There is a Baudelaire quote that would be useful here....lemme see....Why is the spread of the sea so infinitely and so eternally agreeable?

Because the sea conveys the thought both of immensity and of movement. Six or seven leagues are for man the radius of the infinite. 'Tis a diminutive infinite. What matter, if it suffice to suggest the whole? Twelve or fourteen leagues of liquid in movement are enough to convey the highest ideal of beauty which is offered to man in his transitory habitation.

So if the Gulf does that for a person it is the ocean, if it does not, that person should visit an open ocean beach and eat mushrooms. Or visit Chincotueague, VA, Chatham, MA, or Dukes County, MA.
posted by vrakatar at 6:29 PM on April 6, 2018

Ocean should be vast. You should smell the salt in the air. There should be seaweed or horseshoe crabs or jellyfish or something. Sand dunes should be somewhere nearby. There should be driftwood and shells. Dark green is the coolest color, although that only seems to happen up north. The sand should feel good underfoot. Most importantly there should be tides with plenty of undertow and big or biggish waves that you can hear crashing. That is less likely to happen in a gulf.
posted by serena15221 at 2:21 PM on April 9, 2018