The sun was directly behind you, just like it used to say on the old Kodak info sheets that came in every box of film. Worst. Light. Ever. (Most of the time, at least.)

The camera has only one eye. In order to create a sense of depth, it needs shadow to play against the light. Here, you have very little in the way of shadow to give form to what you're seeing. Move the light off to the side a bit, though, and there are a lot of elements, especially on the ship and containers, that will throw shadow. Since you can't physically move the sun (and I'm going to assume that you don't have enough flash power and light stands to light the whole landscape) that means you'd need to move yourself. Or wait for a time of day when the sun is at a more felicitous angle if where you were is the best (or only) point of view you can get.

Today's cameras are pretty darned good at getting a lot of stuff right and making the process of photography easier. But there are two things they still can't do: make sure you're standing in front of interesting stuff; and create shadow and form where there is none. For the foreseeable future, then, the photographer still has two jobs: look at the stuff; and look at the light.