Passive voice & 'agent' - please help!

[grammarbasic]

Dear all

First time posting... would be extremely grateful if someone could help me understand the following:

"The biggest wave I had ever seen in my life was headed toward our ship."

a) Is the sentence in the active or passive voice? [I'm guessing passive, but do not rightly know!!]

b) What or who is the agent of the verb? [I'm guessing the wave, but again, wouldn't bet money on it!]

Sincere thanks if anyone can educate me :)

Best wishes

[Alan]

A good question!

Despite appearing to be passive, it is in fact active, since 'head' is intransitive and therefore cannot be passivized.

You should be aware, though, that 'was headed' is a colloquial version of standard 'was heading...'.