Phoenix

Phoenix appears once in Scripture as the proposed wintering port that lured Paul's Rome-bound ship out of Fair Havens into the deadly Mediterranean storm: "The more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter; which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south west and north west" (Acts 27:12). Phoenix lay about forty miles west of Fair Havens on the south coast of Crete with a protected harbor opening to the northwest. The decision to attempt the crossing late in the sailing season exposed the ship to the violent northeasterly Euraquilo gale that drove them past Cauda and across to the Malta shipwreck.