Born in Santa Barbara, CA. Moved away when I was 11. I've been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
What if you did the looking-out-from-a-thicket thing, where the viewpoint seems to be stationed behind some very near plants crowded around the outsides of the canvas?
The two nearly identical trees on the right bug me. They feel like copies.
Clouds look too solid.
Water seems too green.
Are there waves now? Is this
the Pacific? Looks like a lakeside bank, not the edge of an ocean. Dirt, not sand?
If the shore is experiencing that much wave activity, you might try some little caps all over the surface.
Could this little cove be made to look even more private and undiscovered if it had a canopy of tree cover shading it? I can imagine some animals, foxes, squirrels, et, taking refuge in the shade, lazing around.
Some animal life, or even people in sailboats off in the distance, would give this landscape some actual life. Might also offer better focal points.
Too bad the composition is still in flux, you might have to backtrack on some of the polish/detail you've already added.