Deceivingly difficult, I though it wouldn’t be so hard to match your processing but I did not manage to match some aspects of it at all ! Your processing is really heavy handed on the fine detail enhancement and the noise reduction is interfering with some of the wave crashing details.
This exercise as been difficult and I made extensive use of modules in multiple instances with hybrid masking (parametric+curved gradient)
After trying to mimic your result I gave it a shot just for the fun and discovered an hidden rainbow in your shot (bottom left of the image)
Here is my version 
Thanks for the nice picture !
This is really nice! I’ll have to look at what you did.
a slightly softer processing, i find too much contrast/detail in this wonderful picture destroys the mood.
Waves at Shore_2020-12-14-X-T3-DSCF2168.RAF.xmp (12.0 KB)
1x1 crop
Waves at Shore_2020-12-14-X-T3-DSCF2168_01.RAF.xmp (12.5 KB)
i like both aspect ratios
Thanks a lot for all the ideas. Does anybody know how to make the rocks brighter and emphasize the warm/orange-brown color of them? I can’t figure that one out since I can’t apply White Balance with a mask.
Assuming you are using darktable: The color balance and/or color zones modules come to mind first: quick/simple example sidecar. The example doesn’t use any masking, but it can be applied when wanted/needed.
You could also use the color lookup table module to target specific colours. My experience with this module: Do not use masks!
I’m sure there are other ways as well (color calibration would probably work too), but I’m going to leave those for others to recommend and elaborate on.
I think I lifted the black point in a tone curve (which is a thing I tend to do at the moment anyway), reduced the L contrast in Lab while increasing chromaticity. Also pretty sure some RGB curves were involved but I can’t look it up right now…
With darktable 3.5 using sigmoid, color balance rgb, and some local contrast.
