Santa Cruz Sunrise - Need some suggestions

[Noslocg]

I took these last weekend. Woke up at 5 and drove down to get some pics, but I dont think I got anything too outstanding. These are Okay, but nothing special. I want to get a picture that blows you back and makes you pause for a second (dont we all??). Granted the lack of clouds doesn't help, but any suggestions for next time??

[Chunk]

I took these last weekend. Woke up at 5 and drove down to get some pics, but I dont think I got anything too outstanding. These are Okay, but nothing special. I want to get a picture that blows you back and makes you pause for a second (dont we all??). Granted the lack of clouds doesn't help, but any suggestions for next time??

I think the first one is really good.
I think it would be even stronger if you had pointed the camera a bit higher so most of the plain dark sand would have been illiminated from the foreground. This would have moved the horizon away from the center of the shot. You could have also pointed it down more and moved to a position closer to the wetted sand and positioning the horizon higher in the frame while still filling the foreground with that great color. That might have been the best way to go since there's not a lot of features in the sky.
Nice work.

Edit: I went back and looked again. Maybe this square crop would do everything I think it needs.

[Old Timer]

I took these last weekend. Woke up at 5 and drove down to get some pics, but I dont think I got anything too outstanding. These are Okay, but nothing special. I want to get a picture that blows you back and makes you pause for a second (dont we all??). Granted the lack of clouds doesn't help, but any suggestions for next time??

Your first shot comes close to what your looking for. My suggestion would be to crop off the upper 2/3 of the sky that adds little to the composition and about 1/3 of the lower negative space. This will move your horizon higher into the image and high light the beautifully exposed and composed shoreline and get you back to a horizonal format that this image begs to be in to start with. Sunset pictures while very dramatic can be very challenging. Nice efforts.