Grover’s Head went astern; Nahant grew more and more distinct.  There was but little wind, and the boat went rocking over the long roll of the huge waves, cutting smoothly through their wrinkled surface.  In sight to the south and the east were the Brewsters, the outer light, and the sails of vessels of all sizes and shapes which were slowly making their way into the harbor.  The afternoon was cloudy; but now and then a brilliant ray of sunshine would fall on islands and vessels, lighting them up for an instant, and then closing over again.  My route took me about three miles outside Nahant and in full view of the end of the promontory.  There was now a clear course, except that occasionally a huge patch of floating seaweed would suddenly deaden and then stop the boat’s headway, compelling me to back water and clear the bow of the long strands.  It was at first very startling to be thus checked when running at full speed; the sensation being that some one has grasped the boat and is pushing her back.  With the resistance come the rush and ripple, as the sharp stem plunges through the floating mass of weed.  The wind, which had been light and baffling all the forenoon, after I had passed Nahant, and was abreast of Egg Rock with its little whitewashed light-house, freshened, and, veering to the southeast, blew across my track.  The vessels began to lean to its force, and the waves to rise.  I was then outside Swampscott Bay, about eight miles from land.  The shore was plainly visible, with the buildings dotted along like specks of white, and the outlying reefs showing by the sparkle of the foam upon them.  Phillips’s Beach, and the island called by the romantic name of Ram, were now opposite.  Half-Way Rock, so named from being half way from Boston to Gloucester, was the point towards which I had been pulling for two hours, and it could now for the first time be seen.  It came in sight as the boat was rising on a huge wave which broke under her and went rushing shoreward, roaring savagely, with long streaks of foam down its green back.  The elevation of the eyes above the water was so small, that, when my boat sank away in the trough of the sea, nothing could be seen above the top of the advancing wave.  I had, therefore, to watch my chance, and when she rose, get my bearings.

Half-Way Rock is a water-washed mass of porphyritic stone, the top about twenty feet above high tide, shaped much like a pyramid, and a few years since was capped with a conical granite beacon, strongly built and riveted down, but which had been two-thirds washed away by the tremendous surf of the easterly storms.  The rock stands at the outer edge of a long sand-shoal, and is east of Salem.  To the northward, a dim blue line on the horizon, lay Cape Ann, by my reckoning, about eighteen miles distant.  I kept on pulling over the swell, which was growing larger, not quite in the trough of the sea,—­but when a particularly large wave came easing up a little, so as to take the boat more on the bow, the motion