As ghostrider illustrated with her black and white version of your photo, VALUE is much more important to quilt 'movement' than TONE. If you squint at your quilt, the dark and light values will jump out at you without the colors getting in the way. This is something a great art teacher in high school taught me and I've used it all my life to see darks and lights.
Study the values in some storm at sea quilts that you like, and then make your changes. It's going to be lovely!