So some say:
The emerging evidence has caused many researchers to abandon the idea that life emerged in the oceans and instead focus on land environments, in places that were alternately wet and dry. The shift is hardly unanimous, but scientists who support the idea of a terrestrial beginning say it offers a solution to a long-recognized paradox: that although water is essential for life, it is also destructive to life’s core components.
Surface lakes and puddles are highly promising, says David Catling, a planetary scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “There’s a lot of work that’s been done in the last 15 years which would support that direction.”
Michael Marshall, “How the first life on Earth survived its biggest threat — water” at Nature
If we are looking for random generation of life, we must default to puddles if oceans don’t work, right?