Narthekis Island

View looking north at the Island of Narthekis that is situated in the center of the Strait of Mycale.  At this point the "Strait of Mycale" is only 1 mi. [1.6 km] wide!

The Apostle Paul probably passed this island as he sailed from Chios to Samos to Miletus—towards the end of his Third Journey.

Acts 20: 15 says: "And sailing from there [Mitylene], we [Paul and traveling companions on board a ship] arrived the following day opposite Chios; and the next day we crossed over to Samos; and the day following we came to Miletus." (NASB)

The route that Paul's vessel took from Chios to Miletus is carefully examined by Dr. Mark Wilson at the beginning of his article "The Ephesian elders come to Miletus: An Annaliste reading of Acts 20:15-18a." He argues that the vessel that Paul was on sailed through the narrow straight between Samos and Turkey—the "Mycale Strait"— and possibly landed at the chief city of Samos—Pythagoras or at Troglilum closer to the (present) Turkish mainland.

From: Eric Gaba, Wikimedia Commons user Sting [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

WILSON, M.. The Ephesian elders come to Miletus: An Annaliste reading of Acts 20:15–18a. Verbum et Ecclesia, North America, 34, sep. 2013. Available at: <http://www.ve.org.za/index.php/VE/article/view/744/1751>. Date accessed: 18 Oct. 2013.