‘But we going before to the ship set sail for Assos, there intending to take in Paul, for so he had appointed, intending himself to go by land. And when he met us at Assos, we took him in, and came to Mitylene.'
It would appear at this point that Paul wanted to be on his own, for he left Luke and the others to go by ship to Assos while he travelled overland for about twenty miles along a hilly road. The journey by sea was 30 miles and involved the rounding of Cape Lectum against the strong prevailing north-easterly winds. Probably Luke did not know what the reason for this plan was. Perhaps Paul was a little overborne by people wanting to question him about the miracle. Perhaps he wanted a little time alone on a twenty mile hike as he faced up to the warnings about the future. Or perhaps there was someone he wanted to call on before embarking. It may have been Carpus, because he wanted to entrust to him some precious parchments so that they would not be lost by his coming captivity in Jerusalem. As he wrote to Timothy later, ‘When you come bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments' (2 Timothy 4:13). Or perhaps he wished to spend a few more hours in Troas before taking horse to Assos on the Roman coastal road. Whichever way it was Luke remembers him meeting them again in Assos where he boarded ship and went with them to Mitylene, an important seaport on the island of Lesbos which was favoured by the Romans as a holiday resort. We are not told how long the forty four miles to Mitylene took. Except when necessary in open sea, ships did not usually choose to sail at night unless they had to, as we now discover.