Just a thought (and the reason for it)..

When I 1st looked at this pic, I immediately thought "It should be lying over, not standing upright".Then I read your text, and realised why it's upright.

So then I started thinking about ways to make it more obvious that the ship is rising. And something popped into my mind...

What if you were looking up from below the ship, instead of down from above it?...

Might make it more obvious what's supposed to be happening, especially if there was sea-weed trailing down from the ship, and it might look more dramatic...

As I said, just a thought (and it might mean that you can dispense with caustics/mud-cloud etc..)

Cheers,
Diolma