Acts 28:11

μετὰ δὲ τρεῖς μῆνας, and after three months. The proper season for sailing having again come round, now that winter was over.

ἀνήχθημεν, we set sail. See on Acts 27:3.

ἐν πλοίῳ … Ἀλεξανδρινῷ, in a ship of Alexandria which had wintered in the island. This was another vessel employed probably in the same corn-carrying trade as that other in which (Acts 28:6) they had embarked at Myrrha, and suffered so many perils. This vessel had got as far as Melita, on its way to Italy, before the stormy weather came on. As the harbour was then where it now is, the ship had wintered in what is now Valetta.

παρασήμῳ Διοσκούροις, whose sign was the Twin brothers. Διοσκοῦροι is the name given in mythological story to Jupiter’s two sons (Castor and Pollux) born of Leda, who, when they were translated to the sky, became a constellation of special favour towards sailors. Horace speaks of them as ‘lucida sidera’ (Od. I. 3. 2), where he describes their beneficent influence on the ocean. By παράσημον πλοῖον is meant a boat with what we should now call a figure-head. But the ancient ships had such signs both at stem and stern, and often the figure was that of some divinity.

If for no other reason than the description of the vessel in which the further journey was performed we cannot accept the theory that the wreck took place in the Adriatic Sea. It would be hard to conceive of a vessel from Alexandria, which had stopped on its voyage to Italy to avoid the storms of winter, being found so far out of its course as Meleda in the Adriatic.