Much depends on how you use them: on versus off the water; birdwatching versus shoreline examination; and/or searching for distant navaids, boats, campsites, and people in the water.
Mine were used almost exclusively on the water, birding, and navaid/campsite searching.
I've owned a couple pairs of 8 x 23 waterproof binoculars, one by Nikon and the other by Canon. Both did the job and held up well, with the Canon binocs perhaps having somewhat better optics. Small objective lens diameter units will perform well in daylight, which made these good for picking out navaids and other important shoreside features, but marginal for use near dusk. OTOH, if your main use is from shore for birdwatching, larger, bulkier binocs will be worth the weight penalty and you might get by with less expensive nonwaterproof binocs.
Unlike others, I found these smaller binocs pretty good for identifying waterfowl in daylight. And 8 power magnification was not too jumpy. But, the key was removing my glasses and getting my eyeballs as far into the cups as possible to increase the field of vision. I have never been able to use binocs effectively while wearing glasses because the exit pupil cone from the binocs is usually so small that it dances on and off the pupils of my eyes. In addition, peripheral glare is a real problem if the eyecups cannot seal around your eyes, as when wearing glasses.
Finally, smaller binocs allow you wear them around your neck, where you can quickly get them into play. Underdecks or in a dry bag, you will miss birds and stationary features which are only briefly visible. On your neck, there is some chance of losing them, but a small float strung on the strap, in high visibility yellow, will give you a fighting chance at retrieval if you drop them or capsize.