By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
COURTESY ILLUSTRATION
Portrait of Gaspar Portola
We’ve written extensively about the first Europeans to sail into San Francisco Bay, in 1775 aboard the Spanish supply ship San Carlos, captained by Juan Manuel de Ayala. But the Bay was actually discovered six years earlier by one of Ayala’s countrymen, Gaspar de Portola y Rovira.
Portola, as he has come to be known, was a soldier in the Spanish army and was serving as governor of Baja California when the Spanish Visitor General began to organize an expedition to explore Alta California. They had heard stories of a great bay lying north of Monterey and were determined to find and colonize it.
Portola was deemed "Governor of the Californias" and given overall command. Junípero Serra, leader of the expedition's Franciscan missionaries, took command of spiritual matters. Portola and Serra decided on a joint expedition by land and sea.
In 1909 the San Francisco Call ran a voluminous report on the discovery of personal letters to and from Portola which provide his personal accounts of his expedition. Here are some excerpts from those letters:
“July 4, '69. Most Excellent Sir — Sir: On the 21st of May I set out from the Place called San Juan de Dios, which is twenty-four leagues from the Mission of Santa Maria, the northernmost one in the [Baja] Peninsula, accompanied by ten Soldiers of my Presidio, and with one hundred and seventy mules loaded with provisions sufficient for my Expedition. After thirty-nine days I arrived without mishap at this Port of San Diego, the day being June 28. In this Camp I found the Men of my first detachment as healthy and strong as those whom I brought in my Company: the maritime expedition, however, I found little less than out of commission, and in such an unhappy and deplorable state that I was moved to the greatest pity. All, without exception, Soldiers, Sailors and officers, are afflicted with scurvy; some completely prostrated, some half paralyzed, and others still on their feet, but without strength.”
Portola decided to proceed on foot, with a small compliment of men, in hopes that a supply ship would be able to meet them at San Diego. He wrote to his commander, “I well know, Most Excellent Sir, that this plan is somewhat venturesome, but since there is no other recourse, I perceive that this is no time to look for safe measures. The present season is the only one of the year in which to traverse those lands, and even in this season one suffers a good deal from the cold, which makes the nights tedious and uncomfortable.”
He and a party of 65 set out from San Diego for Monterey July 14. He carried reports that had been handed down from Sebastian Vizcaino and other early explorers, particularly Cabrera Bueno, a pilot of the Manila fleet, in his 1734 "Navegacion Especulativa" which contained information about the California coast drawn from early accounts.
The marchers actually missed Monterey in poor visibility, pressing on north to the present-day town of Pacifica on October 31.
On November 4, having crossed a low coastal mountain range, the party caught a stunning a glimpse of an enormous bay previously unknown to the Spanish. It was protected from rough ocean currents by land on all sides except the mouth, which we know today as the Golden Gate.
Portola wrote: “Upon looking beyond to 38 degrees and somewhat further and seeing the Farallones which according to the signs of Cabrera, and finding ourselves in such an uncalled for latitude, the Expedition halted. Fearing that the Port of Monterrey must have been passed on account of the continuous mist which had been experienced, it was resolved unanimously that the Expedition should go back, and that exploration should be made with the greatest diligence and care.”
Salesian monk Father Juan Crespi was with Portola on this expedition, and recorded his impressions of the bay in his diary:
“The Senor Commandant ordered that It should be explored and passage beyond It made. They explored seven days, and in that time the explorers were not able to go around the whole estuary, which enters at least ten leagues into the land, and which might be called a great arm of the Sea. It is wholly surrounded by very high Sierras and amounts to a lake protected on all sides. At its narrowest part this estuary must be three leagues wide and it has in it three islands. From the point where Its latitude was observed we went forward for three days' march. We pitched camp on the bank of a good Arroyo of Water which runs through this plain. In this place we remained four days, which were the last ones in which they went out to explore. This Port of San Francisco, according to what we saw and according to the Opinion of all the experts, is very large; and without doubt the Port would contain not only all the Armadas of Our Catholic Monarch but all those of Europe.”
Today you we can visit the site of Portola’s discovery at Sweeney Ridge in Pacifica, marked by two permanent monuments. From San Bruno, trails to the ridge start from the west end of Sneath Lane off Highway 35 (Skyline Blvd.), and from Skyline College Parking Lot #2.