Acts 27 to 28 — The Most Detailed Sea Journey in the New Testament By Hasan Gülday, Tour Guide in Turkey
A Maritime Narrative Unlike Any Other in Scripture
Acts 27 and 28 contain something unique in the entire New Testament: a detailed first-person account of an ancient Mediterranean sea voyage, with specific harbours named, sailing conditions described, wind directions noted, a major storm narrated almost hour by hour, and a shipwreck recounted in remarkable detail. The author, Luke — Paul’s companion who had been with him through several earlier journeys — was an eyewitness to the events. The shift to first-person plural in Acts 27:1 (“when it was determined that we should sail into Italy”) is one of the clearest markers in the book that we are reading firsthand testimony.
The voyage starts at Caesarea Maritima on the coast of Palestine in around 59 AD. Paul has been under Roman custody for two years after his arrest in Jerusalem. He has appealed his case to the emperor — exercising his right as a Roman citizen — and is now being shipped to Rome to stand trial. Acts records what happened over the next several months in remarkable detail.
This article walks through seven major stops on that voyage. Some are recorded in single verses, some occupy chapters. Each tells us something specific about ancient Mediterranean travel and about Paul’s experience as a Roman prisoner. The route covers what would now be five countries — Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece (via Crete), Malta, and Italy. The most underrated narrative in Acts.
1. Caesarea Maritima (Departure, around 59 AD)
The starting point. Paul had been imprisoned at Caesarea — Herod the Great’s great Roman harbour on the Palestinian coast — for approximately two years before the voyage began. He had been tried before the Roman governors Felix and Festus, had appealed his case to Caesar, and had made a final defence speech before King Herod Agrippa II and his sister Bernice. The decision was made: he would be shipped to Rome.
He was placed in the custody of a Roman centurion named Julius, of the Augustan Cohort, who would prove unusually friendly to him during the voyage. Luke and Aristarchus, a Macedonian Christian from Thessalonica, accompanied him — possibly officially registered as Paul’s slaves, which was the standard arrangement that allowed companions to travel with prisoners under Roman custody.
They boarded a coastal ship at Caesarea Maritima — not a direct Italy-bound vessel, but one that hopped along the coast — for the first leg of the journey. The harbour at Caesarea, built by Herod with imported volcanic materials and the most sophisticated engineering of its day, was one of the largest artificial harbours in the ancient Mediterranean. Paul had spent two years looking at it from his cell. Now he was sailing out of it.
Caesarea Maritima is in modern Israel today, accessible to visitors as a major archaeological site. The harbour Paul sailed from is partly underwater, partly visible above ground. The praetorium where he was imprisoned has been excavated.
2. Sidon (one day, around 59 AD)
The first stop. Sidon was an ancient Phoenician port city on the coast of what is now Lebanon, about a day’s sailing north of Caesarea. The ship put in there, probably to load and unload cargo. Acts 27:3 records a small but humanising detail: Julius the centurion “treated Paul kindly, and gave him liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself.”
There was already a Christian community at Sidon — “his friends,” as Luke puts it. This is a telling phrase. Christianity had spread along the Phoenician coast within a few decades of the resurrection, almost certainly carried by refugees from the persecution that followed the stoning of Stephen in Jerusalem (Acts 11:19 mentions Phoenicia as a destination of these refugees). Paul, despite being a prisoner, was allowed off the ship to visit them. The centurion’s discretion — granted on his own initiative, since Roman regulations would not normally have required it — is the first hint that Julius understood Paul to be no ordinary prisoner.
What survives of ancient Sidon: the modern city of Saida in Lebanon preserves substantial ancient ruins, including the famous Sea Castle (a Crusader-era construction on earlier Phoenician foundations) and substantial sections of the Roman city below modern street level. The harbour where Paul came ashore is partly identifiable.
3. Myra (transfer to grain ship, around 59 AD)
The first stop on what is now Turkish soil. From Sidon the ship sailed north along the Anatolian coast, struggling against contrary winds, eventually putting in at Myra in Lycia (modern Demre, in Antalya Province). At Myra, Julius transferred Paul and the other prisoners to a much larger vessel — a grain ship bound from Alexandria to Italy.
This was the most important leg of the voyage’s logistics. The Alexandrian grain trade was the lifeline of Rome — Egypt was the breadbasket of the empire, and the great grain ships made the annual circuit from Alexandria via various Mediterranean ports to Italy. They were the largest vessels in the ancient Mediterranean, sometimes over forty metres long, capable of carrying hundreds of passengers in addition to grain cargo. The one Paul boarded carried 276 people, according to Acts 27:37.
Myra itself, where Paul changed ships, would three centuries later become famous for an entirely different reason: it was the city where Saint Nicholas served as bishop. The Byzantine church built over Nicholas’s tomb is one of the most-visited Christian sites in Turkey today. So the same small harbour town that handled Paul’s prisoner transfer also produced the historical Santa Claus.
What you visit: the church of Saint Nicholas in modern Demre, and the partially excavated ruins of ancient Myra adjacent to it. About three hours’ drive west of Antalya.
4. Cnidus or Knidos (struggled past, around 59 AD)
The most northerly point reached by the ship before it was forced south. Cnidus was an ancient Greek city on the very tip of the Datça peninsula, in what is now Muğla Province in south-western Turkey. The peninsula extends like a long finger into the Aegean Sea, and rounding its tip was a known challenge for ancient ships in unfavourable winds.
Acts 27:7 records that the ship “sailed slowly many days, and scarce were come over against Cnidus, the wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete, over against Salmone.” The wind was blowing from the north-west, against their course. They could not round the cape and continue west. They were forced to turn south, run for the lee of Crete, and follow the southern coast of that island instead.
Cnidus was famous in antiquity for one specific thing: the statue of Aphrodite by Praxiteles, considered one of the finest works of Greek sculpture ever produced, stood in the temple here. Paul did not stop. The wind would not let him.
What survives of ancient Cnidus: a beautifully situated archaeological site at the tip of the Datça peninsula, accessible by road or by boat from Datça town. Remote, atmospheric, less visited than the major coastal ruins precisely because it requires deliberate effort to reach.
5. Fair Havens, Crete (decision point, around 59 AD)
The most decisive moment of the voyage. After running south to Crete and following the island’s southern coast westward, the ship put in at Fair Havens — a small natural harbour on the south coast of Crete near the modern village of Loutro. The sailing season was now late in the year; the autumn winds were turning. The Fast — the Jewish Day of Atonement, which falls in late September or early October — was already past, according to Acts 27:9. Continuing the voyage at this point was dangerous.
Paul, who had several previous shipwrecks behind him (2 Corinthians 11:25 mentions “thrice I suffered shipwreck”), advised wintering at Fair Havens. The harbour was not ideal but it was safe. The captain and the ship’s owner — both of whom would have known their business — overruled him. They wanted to push on to Phoenix, a better harbour further west on the Cretan coast. The centurion Julius, deferring to the professionals, sided with them.
The decision proved disastrous. A south wind picked up gently, encouraging them to set sail. Within hours it had turned into a violent north-easter — what Acts 27:14 calls a Euroclydon — that drove the ship out of control southward, well away from any safe coast. The fourteen-day storm that followed is one of the great sea narratives of ancient literature.
What you can visit today: the natural harbour of Fair Havens (Kaloi Limenes in Greek) is still identifiable on the south coast of Crete, near Loutro. The site is undeveloped — a small bay with limited modern infrastructure.
6. Malta (shipwreck, three months, around 60 AD)
After fourteen days of storm in which the crew had given up hope, the ship ran aground on the coast of Malta (Acts 27:39-44). All 276 people on board reached shore safely, partly because Paul had encouraged the captain to lighten the ship by throwing the wheat overboard (he had also told the crew, on the basis of an angelic vision, that no lives would be lost), partly because the locals helped. Acts 28 records the three months that followed.
The Maltese received the shipwrecked party with extraordinary kindness. A fire was built. A viper, hiding in the firewood, bit Paul on the hand as he was helping to feed the flames. He shook it off. The locals, who had at first thought he must be a criminal under divine judgement (his being a prisoner under Roman guard would have suggested this), watched expecting him to swell up and die. When he did not, they decided he was a god.
Paul healed Publius, the senior Roman official on the island, whose father was suffering from dysentery. Then others came for healing. The three-month stay turned into one of the most fruitful pastoral periods of Paul’s life. When another grain ship arrived in the spring, the Maltese sent the party off with provisions for the rest of the voyage.
Malta’s Catholic culture today is rooted in this episode. The traditional site of the shipwreck is at St. Paul’s Bay on the north coast of the island. The traditional cave where Paul stayed during part of his Maltese sojourn is in Rabat. Annual processions and feasts commemorate the events of Acts 28.
7. Rome (arrival and house arrest, around 60 AD)
The destination. After Malta, the journey continued via Syracuse in Sicily (three days), Rhegium on the toe of Italy (one day), and Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli, near Naples — seven days with a Christian community there). From Puteoli, Paul travelled overland to Rome along the Via Appia, the great Roman road that connected southern Italy to the capital.
At two points on the road — the Forum of Appius (about seventy kilometres from Rome) and Three Taverns (about fifty kilometres from Rome) — groups of Roman Christians came out to meet Paul. Acts 28:15 contains the small but emotionally striking detail: “whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage.” After a long voyage, shipwreck, and overland journey, the apostle was moved by the welcome of believers in the city he had hoped to visit for years.
Paul arrived in Rome around 60 AD. He was kept under house arrest for two whole years (Acts 28:30-31), at his own expense, with the freedom to receive visitors and to preach to anyone who came to him. The Book of Acts ends here — abruptly, frustratingly, without telling us what happened to Paul next. The traditional view is that the so-called Prison Epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon) were written from this Roman house arrest. Two years of constrained but productive ministry in the imperial capital.
What This Journey Tells Us
Seven stops. From Caesarea on the Palestinian coast to Rome itself. The voyage covers what would now be five countries and almost two thousand kilometres of sea travel. The detailed nautical narrative in Acts 27 is taken so seriously by maritime historians that it is sometimes used as a primary source for understanding ancient Mediterranean sailing practice in general — the directions, the winds, the seasonal patterns.
For the Christian visitor to Turkey specifically, the voyage matters because three of the seven stops are on what is now Turkish soil: Myra, Cnidus, and the longer struggle along the Anatolian coast that preceded the southern detour. The roads and harbours Paul knew on this leg are still the roads and harbours of southern Turkey today.
If you would like to combine a visit to Myra and the southern Anatolian coast with an exploration of the Pauline voyage to Rome, contact me on toursaroundturkey.com. Sometimes the most rewarding way to read a chapter of scripture is to stand at one of the places it describes.
See you soon, Hasan Gülday