The same evening..

I would lower the contrast and colour saturation somewhat. The boldness of the centre tree and the floats out in the water are a bit distracting.

i would prob desaturate the blue chanel to get the tint of the clouds, maybe move the white balance warmer, and maybe lower the contrast (i hate reducing contrast )

Colours are oversaturated, horizon is leaning to the left, the lightpole and plastic floats in the water looks too un-natural!

I'd take the picture at low tide and at another spot that looks more natural, closer to the water with the sky and clouds reflecting in the water.

Something like this, but taken at sundown!

Plahgat

Thanks for all the advice!

New to this so please bear with me! Tried to do all the changes suggested but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, I suppose!

The ambient lighting was created by the artificial light on the beach and the starkly lit trimmed tree just appears when you round a corner on the paved beach walk; creates quite a stunning effect but lots of distractions in the shot, unfortunately that can't be avoided. The original image was posted almost unaltered except for adjusting the histogram a bit. This is a new lens as well (10 -24mm Nikkor) which I am playing around with and enjoying it tremendously!

With such a wide lens try and get closer - temptation is to try and 'get more in' but instead get closer when using such a wide angle