I suppose it would depend on what you'd qualify as "the ocean". I lived in Seattle for 4.5 years, and while I don't consider Elliot Bay[1] to be "the ocean" per se, it's pretty close - and you have all the corrosion problems and general exposure to the elements that you'd get, which I think was the original point of the comparison in this thread.
It's amazing that the drive to the Northern part of the Olympia Peninsula is so long, Bellingham which looks much farther is around a half hour closer.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Bay