10 Common Sailing Myths You Shouldn't Believe 

You should! Life is way to short!

Welcome aboard! I appreciate it. I'm picking up the publishing routine again.

Fair winds to you too

Yes, lakes can be far more dangerous than open ocean for the one simple fact that when weather is stormy for any length of time longer than say a summer rainstorm that passes quickly, something called fetch or the distance in which seas can build up (loosely defined) but in a lake fetch is more severely limited by the size of the lake. That means when a storm causes waves to build, and the fetch is limited by coastlines, the waves can travel to the opposite shore and rebound, thus coming back smaller but powerful nonetheless, causing confused and more dangerous seas. As this continues, the dominant waves being generated by the wind, are met by increasingly larger waves rebounding from the opposite shore and this is ONE of the factors that caused the catastrophic break up and loss of the ship Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Michigan. Upon the ocean it is rarely the case unless, you're in say the Gulf of Mexico or an enclosed sea such as the Mediterranean, that you encounter the problem of a counter swell or rebound of storm seas from an opposite shoreline. The greater depth and vastly longer fetch means that the seas are further apart as well which lessens slightly the danger but it is ALWAYS dangerous at sea in a storm it's just an order of magnitude more unpleasant or dangerous upon a large lake. On smaller lakes say less than a mile or so across the fetch is so short a really dangerous sea is unable to build. It may be lumpy and uncomfortable for a canoe or inflatable child's raft, but maybe not life threatening.