next day, October 31st, the pioneers had prepared a passage over the bold promontory of Point San Pedro, and at ten o’clock in the morning the company set out on the trail of the exploradores and made their painful way to the summit.  Here a wondrous sight met their eyes and quickened their flagging spirits.  Before them, bright and beautiful, was spread a great ensenada, its waters dancing in the sunlight.  Far to the northwest a point reached out into the sea, rising abruptly before them, high above the ocean.  Further to the left, west-northwest, were seen six or seven white Farallones and finally along the shore northward they discerned the white cliffs and what appeared to be the mouth of an inlet.  There could be not mistake.  The distant point was the Punta de los Reyes and before them lay the Bahia o Puerto de San Francisco.  The saint had been good to them and with joy in their hearts they made the steep and difficult descent and camped in the San Pedro valley[29] at the foot of the Montara mountains.

Some of the company thought they had left the Port of Monterey behind but would not believe they had reached the Port of San Francisco.  To settle the matter, the governor ordered Ortega and his men to examine the country as far as Point Reyes, giving them three days in which to report, while the command remained in camp in the Vallecito de la Punta de las Almejas del Angel de la Guarda, as Crespi calls it, combining the two names of the camp of October 30th and transferring them to the camp in San Pedro valley.

The next day, Thursday, November 2nd, being All Souls day, after mass some of the soldiers asked permission to go and hunt for deer.  They climbed the mountains east of the camp and returning after nightfall reported that they had seen from the top of the mountain an immense estero or arm of the sea, which thrust itself into the land as far as the eye could reach, stretching to the southeast; that they had seen some beautiful plains thickly covered with trees, while the many columns of smoke rising over them showed that they were well stocked with Indian villages.  This story confirmed them in the belief that they were at the Port of San Francisco, and that the estero described was that spoken of by Cabrera Bueno, the mouth of which they imagined they had seen from the Montara mountains[30].  They were now satisfied that Ortega would be unable to reach Point Reyes, and that three days was not sufficient time to go around the head of such an estero.  The exploring party returned in the night of November 3d, discharging their fire-arms as they approached.  They reported that they found themselves obstructed by immense estuaries which ran extraordinarily far back into the land[31], but what caused their rejoicing was that they understood from the signs of the Indians that at two days journey from where they were there was a port in which a ship was anchored.  On this announcement, some thought that they were at the port of Monterey, and that the supply ship San Jose or the San Carlos was waiting for them.  Crespi says that if they were not in Monterey, they were certainly in San Francisco.