Everybody has his/her personal ideas and as long it works out, then it's great!

I usually shoot both Raw and Jpg so i can see the pics as soon as they are downloaded onto my PC.

If I get 100 pics, I see 100 thumbnails ( jpg) and 100 Raw files (I can't see what they look like ).

Right away, I can delete the ones I know are not worth keeping ( both Jpg and Raw )

As far as the buffer on the camera, I can shoot 8 per sec for a long time until it slows down. That comes in handy when you chase birds in flight.

I have used Echo, always going from the computer to the external drive. What I can't understand is how some files vanished and not others.

I'm going to play around with it some more and see what happens. I might just back to Acronis or do a direct copy of files.

I will agree with those who say nothing much can be done. I tried some edits on it and wasn't pleased. In addition when I looked at it closer, parts of the image are out of focus, plus there is too much reflected light off the water. You might try a neutral density filter which will cut down on the glare or best shoot it at a time that you don't get as much reflection. One can barely tell the water from the land. I did some photos or reflections last week and calmed them down with ND filters.
Swede

Keep the sky in, it gives depth, especially the fall off in focus as it stretches out to the horizon. Without that in the image it would look to cramped and too busy with too much sea.

Change the crop so that it is half way from the original and your cropped version. In other words, you have half as much sea below the surfer again, as you did in your crop, but not as much as in the uncropped version.

I like the overall impact but would suggest that you decrease the contrast slightly and take your tinted version and reduce the colour/tint to about 80% less, so that it is just above a B&W with just a hint of Sepia Tint in the image.

Then you'll have an interesting and thought provoking print. You may also try a hint of dark blue tint and then try one with a hint of pink tint or burnt sienna.