Yet another dawn picture

Shan Wei, China

The sun had barely cleared the low rising island right in front of us, as evident by the shimmering glow in the water. I had a hard time trying to determine the exposure for this shot.  I was exposing for the brighter part of the water, but the high contrast rendered most of the other areas in very deep shadows.  I was pondering, after I returned to the comfort of home and started looking carefully into the files, whether I had actually underexposed the picture.  I had been very careful and checked the highlights and shadows for any blown-out when i was chimping, and there were very little of both.  Yet, even after manipulating with the Lightroom sliders in a lot of different ways, I was still pondering..... Is this what my mind was reading at the time of exposure?  I know I could "see" much more then, but is this what I want to show?