According to the sources, the Egyptian fleet sailed from Alexandria to Cyprus. The Byzantine strategos of the Cibyrrhaeots managed to surprise the Arabs and blockade the entrance of the harbour of Keramaia. As a result, almost the entire Arab fleet—Theophanes writes, with obvious exaggeration, of a thousand dromons, while Anastasius gives the more plausible number of thirty vessels—was destroyed. According to Theophanes, "it is said that only three ships escaped".

This crushing defeat was a signal event: in its aftermath, the Egyptian fleets are not mentioned until the second half of the 9th century, following the Sack of Damietta. Egypt ceased to be a major base for naval expeditions against Byzantium during the century after Keramaia.