I have lived by the sea in two different locations for almost twenty years. In my current place I can see the sea from two of my windows, smell it sometimes when I go out my front door and it takes me less than a minute to reach the shoreline.
The sea has a way of seeping into your soul. I love the way the seasons are measured by it, from the gentle sonorous summer eddying of the foam-white swell to the thunderous crashing of angry sounding waves on the rocks on wild wet winter’s day. Years of living adjacent to the water have not diminished my capacity for wonder at the ever-changing seascape.
Not so many years ago when ever I was seeking an answer to one of life’s predicements I would walk along the beach and stop to cast a pebble into the waves . I hoped that the ripples created, when I threw the stone, would in some magical way return a solution to whatever dilemma I was turning over in my mind. They never did but the stroll by the sea was always restorative and usually put whatever minor travail I was fretting about in perspective.
I still walk along the sea-shore but no longer cast stones out to the horizon in search of answers. I still believe that the universe has a mysterious way of illuminating a path for us through whatever thorny byways life sends us down but I now feel that this illumination is not a flick-of-the-light-switch moment but a ghostly glimmer which our instinct and intuition then burnish to a glow.
Just Add Attitude 
Lovely, lovely. I’ve lived near the sea most of my life too, and like you, I know that it provides endless solace and inspiration, whether directly or indirectly. I’ll always return to the shore for that reason, a good life in landlocked north Texas notwithstanding!
I think you have hit the nail on the head; the sea does provide endless solace and inspiration.