This 250th anniversary in San Francisco will probably pass in silence
The arrival of the San Carlos set off a whole series of events. Once the Spanish found out the extent and potential of the area, they decided to send a party of colonists the very next year; they arrived in the spring of 1776. It was the beginning of San Francisco and the end of a way of life for people who had lived around the bay for thousands of years.
Two hundred fifty years is a big milestone, but any story about exploration comes with baggage: colonialism and the fatal impact of European contact on native peoples. So there will be no celebration of this anniversary as far as I know. But any voyage into the unknown has a certain fascination. As a kid I devoured stories about explorers: Robert Scott in the Antarctic, Roald Amundsen on the Northwest Passage. I just finished 'The Wide Wide Sea,' Hampton Sides' book on Capt. James Cook. I never outgrew these tales.
So the voyage of the San Carlos to San Francisco was a natural. The commander of the San Carlos, Teniente de Fragata (Frigate Lt.) Juan Manuel de Ayala, kept a careful log of the voyage, and it's preserved in the Council of the Indies in Madrid.
The Spanish descriptions are so clear you can visit the locations Ayala wrote about. You can take a ferry to Angel Island to the cove where the San Carlos anchored for a month, or sail to Vallejo up the wide bay the Spanish named for St. Paul.
Just the other day I drove to the little beach at the edge of the Presidio where the San Carlos anchored that first night in San Francisco Bay in 132 feet of water with a sandy bottom. The spot is not far from what we call the Golden Gate. It's part of a national park, popular with joggers and dog walkers.
Ayala anchored the ship a quarter-mile from the beach, but Ayala didn't like the look of it: too windy, too much current, whirlpools and riptides. So in the morning he moved across the bay to Marin to a place he called Carmelita, out of the wind. You can stand on that little San Francisco beach and see that cross bay trip in your mind's eye.
But the bottom was soft on the north side, and that wouldn't do either. Ayala feared losing the anchor in the mud.
Ayala's chief mate and pilot, José de Cañizares, had scouted a cove on the bay's biggest island, not far away, and Ayala eventually took the ship there. As it was near her feast day, the island was named for Our Lady, Queen of the Angels — Angel Island. Another island was found to be inhospitable, with steep cliffs and hundreds of pelicans. Alcatraz.
Ayala sent Cañizares, the pilot, with 10 men in a launch to explore and chart the bay. They went north and east taking soundings and mapping the shore. They went as far as Carquinez Strait, which they named for the Karquin people they met, and into Suisun Bay. Another pilot, Juan Aguirre, went south toward what became San Jose. The chart they made became the first accurate map of the bay region.
Juan Manuel de Ayala was born in Andalusia and was a graduate of the Spanish naval academy. By the time he was assigned to Mexico he was 29, and after 15 years in the service was still a lieutenant. But he had a good reputation and was one of five officers hand picked by the viceroy to explore the north coast on three ships. The Spanish knew about San Francisco Bay and wanted more information.
Ayala must have been disappointed when he got to San Blas, a small base near Puerto Vallarta, to be given command of the schooner Sonora, only 36 feet long and designed for inshore work. The Sonora and two other ships sailed from San Blas on the afternoon of March 21,1775, the first day of spring.
There was trouble. The San Carlos, a two-masted packet boat that was the largest in the fleet, hoisted a signal. The captain, Diego Manrique, a senior lieutenant, was sick 'and unable to continue the voyage.' He'd had a mental breakdown. He became paranoid, convinced himself that persons unknown were after him. He stashed loaded pistols all over the ship. The fleet commander relieved Manrique and picked Ayala to replace him.
On April 4, when the fleet was near the Port of Mazatlan, one of the pistols the unfortunate former captain had hidden away went off and shot Ayala in the foot. Ayala was so badly hurt he couldn't walk. This was in 1775, and one can only imagine the medical help available on a ship at sea. Mazatlan was not far away and Ayala could have turned back. But this was his chance — an independent command with orders to go to the uncharted port of San Francisco. So, disabled as he was, he stayed in command.
The voyage was long and tedious; the San Carlos was very slow, especially when sailing against the wind and in the heavy coastal fog. It took from early April to late June to sail from Cabo San Lucas at the tip of Baja California, to Monterey, where they stopped for repairs, and nearly a week from Monterey to the Gulf of the Farallones. At sunrise on Aug. 5, the ship was at 36 degrees 42 minutes north latitude and Ayala could see what we now call the Golden Gate. The rest was history.
The arrival of the San Carlos was not the first contact between the people of the Bay Area and Europeans. An expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá first sighted the bay in the fall of 1769. In 1772, another expedition, this one headed by army Capt. Pedro Fages, explored the eastern side of the bay. They calculated the latitude of the entrance to the estuary. A gap in the coastal hills looked to them like 'a gate.' Three years later, Ayala knew where to sail.
The Spanish sailors found the local people 'affable and hospitable.' They came aboard the ship and invited the foreigners to their camps. They offered food and small gifts. Padre Vicente Santa Maria was quite taken with what he called 'the heathens' and tried to learn their language and culture.
The voyage of the San Carlos did not create the historic drama that followed, but it set the stage. On one of his exploring trips, the pilot Aguirre came upon a little cove. On the shore were three people, weeping uncontrollably. He couldn't understand the reason for the tears, but he called it ' La Ensenada de los llorones ' — the cove of the weepers. Today it's called Mission Bay, San Francisco's newest neighborhood.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
9 hours ago
- Forbes
Why The Northwest Passage Is A Once-In-A-Lifetime Adventure
The Northwest Passage is a route brimming with history, intrigue, and challenge. Spanning 900 miles from Baffin Island all the way to the Beaufort Sea, it weaves through an archipelago of some 36,000 islands and shifting sea ice above the Arctic Circle. It's so remote and difficult to navigate that the Passage wasn't fully crossed until 1906, when Roald Amundsen first established it. Since then, reports Boat International, more people have stood on the summit of Everest than have traversed the Northwest Passage by sea. The full passage is only free enough from sea ice to sail for a four-to-six-week window starting in mid-August. And even in that window, ice and weather can be unpredictable. Accurate sea and ocean floor charts still don't exist in some of the remote spots up here. The Canadian Arctic is home to polar bears, the biggest land-based predator in existence. And thirty to forty different permits—for each passenger—are required between the different communal, regional, and federal departments with jurisdiction along the route. All of this is what makes an expedition through the Northwest Passage a once-in-lifetime adventure. It's also why taking that journey with an experienced expedition cruise ship operator is almost the only way to do it—so much so that people who normally wouldn't vacation aboard a traditional cruise ship will take an expedition cruise to see the Northwest Passage. Still on the fence? Here's are a few reasons to take an expedition cruise through this remote and dramatic part of the world. Rich Culture — Experienced Sensitively This reason is specific to Adventure Canada, and what makes this company a standout among the expedition operators in the region. Most expedition cruises through the Northwest Passage will launch from the west coast of Greenland to head through the Canadian Arctic. Both regions are home to communities of Greenlandic and Canadian Inuit. And where most operators tend to employ one Inuit cultural educator per Greenland and Canada permit requirements, says Wayne Broomfield, a cultural educator with Adventure Canada from Labrador, Adventure Canada's expedition crew often includes more than a dozen. Backlash against cruise ship tourism in hotspot destinations has dominated recent headlines. The descending of tourists en masse in a few-hour blitz often feels voyeuristic and transactional on both the parts of community members and passengers, and often many sectors of those over-visited communities don't see much financial benefit from it. Inuit towns in the Arctic (logistically difficult to travel to unless you're on a cruise ship) are no exception. From the beginning of a voyage, before even landing in a community, Adventure Canada cultural educators help passengers prepare for and process community visits, both the harmful and good aspects. They give presentations ranging from mythology and art to how to harvest marine mammals for subsistence, lead hikes while telling stories, and sit down with any passengers who want to talk. It's essentially a floating version of spending the quality time at a destination that usually results in more rewarding cultural immersion—and a welcome model in an era where the need for more sustainable cultural interactions is increasingly entering the travel discourse. History For over four hundred years, European and American explorers tried to find a commercially viable Northwest or Northeast Passage through the Arctic to East Asia. Many failed, with sea ice blocking ships' progress or freezing them in place. Few are more infamous than the 1845 British Expedition of Sir John Franklin. After the crew's last letters were sent home from the coast of Greenland, Franklin's two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, were last sighted by whalers off Baffin Island. And then both ships just vanished, along with all one hundred and twenty souls aboard. Lady Jane Franklin pressured the British Admiralty to send several expeditions to search for them. They turned up only three lonely graves on Beechey Island and then, some years later, an ominous note in a pile of rocks that several men had died, including Franklin himself, and the rest were heading south. They were never found. By 1854, Britain declared all men from the expedition to be deceased. A Northwest Passage trip, weather and sea ice permitting, often includes a stop on Beechey Island, where the graves and their markers still remain. Adventure An expedition-style cruise is far different from a traditional cruise. Volatile weather and changing sea ice means that no itineraries are set in stone. Expedition crews are often leading Zodiac cruises or landing for hiking excursions in places none of them have ever been before, giving an exceptionally adventurous feel to outings. And because this is polar bear territory, advance crews of bear guards armed with flares and rifles scout the area first, and serve as advance watches on hikes. Polar bear tracks show up in the sand on beaches, sometimes closely followed by Arctic fox tracks. And it's not just tracks to be viewed. A Northwest Passage trip is likely to offer up at least one polar bear sighting (although it can range from zero sightings to a dozen or more). There's little that compares with the opportunity to watch the most massive predator on land amble across a slope, sit on the sea ice poised to dive for a seal hunt, or hop from ice floe to ice floe. The Takeaway For travelers looking for a once-in-a-lifetime expedition full of adventure, history, and culture, a Northwest Passage trip should be high on the list. Even for those who don't consider themselves 'cruise ship' travelers.
NBC News
17 hours ago
- NBC News
Pope thrills hundreds of thousands of young Catholics at Holy Year youth festival
ROME — Pope Leo XIV urged hundreds of thousands of young people on Saturday to have the courage to make radical choices to do good, as he presided over his first big encounter with the next generation of Catholics during the highlight of the Vatican's 2025 Holy Year. Leo encountered a sea of people as he arrived by helicopter at the Tor Vergata field on Rome's outskirts for a vigil service of the Jubilee of Youth. Hailing from early 150 countries, the pilgrims had set up campsites on the field for the night, as misting trucks and water cannons spritzed them to cool them down from the 85-degree temperatures. Leo displayed his fluency in speaking to the kids in Spanish, Italian and English about the dangers of social media, the value of true friendship and the need to have courage to make radical choices like marriage or religious vows. "Friendship can really change the world. Friendship is a path to peace," he said. "How much the world needs missionaries of the Gospel who are witnesses of justice and peace!" But history's first American pope also alerted them to some tragic news: Two young people who had made the pilgrimage to Rome had died, one reportedly of cardiac arrest, while a third was hospitalized, Leo told the crowd during the vigil service. Leo was to return to the field for an early morning Mass on Sunday morning to close out the celebration. Rome welcomes the throngs For the past week, these bands of young Catholics from around the world have poured into Rome for their special Jubilee celebration, in a Holy Year in which 32 million people are expected to descend on the Vatican to participate in a centuries-old pilgrimage to the seat of Catholicism. The young people have been traipsing down cobblestoned streets in color-coordinated T-shirts, praying the Rosary and singing hymns with guitars, bongo drums and tambourines shimmying alongside. Using their flags as tarps to shield them from the sun, they have taken over entire piazzas for Christian rock concerts and inspirational talks, and stood for hours at the Circus Maximus to confess their sins to 1,000 priests offering the sacrament in a dozen different languages. "It is something spiritual, that you can experience only every 25 years," said Francisco Michel, a pilgrim from Mexico. "As a young person, having the chance to live this meting with the pope I feel it is a spiritual growth." A mini World Youth Day, 25 years later It all has the vibe of a World Youth Day, the Catholic Woodstock festival that St. John Paul II inaugurated and made famous in Rome in 2000 at the very same Tor Vergata field. Then, before an estimated 2 million people, John Paul told the young pilgrims they were the "sentinels of the morning" at the dawn of the third millennium. Officials had initially expected 500,000 youngsters this weekend, but Leo and organizers from the stage said the number could reach 1 million. The Vatican didn't immediately provide a final estimate. "It's a bit messed up, but this is what is nice about the Jubilee," said Chloe Jobbour, a 19-year-old Lebanese Catholic who was in Rome with a group of more than 200 young members of the Community of the Beatitudes, a France-based charismatic group. She said, for example, that it had taken two hours to get dinner at a KFC overwhelmed by orders Friday night. The Salesian school that offered her group housing is an hour away by bus. But Jobbour, like many in Rome this week, didn't mind the discomfort: It's all part of the experience. "I don't expect it to be better than that. I expected it this way," she said, as members of her group gathered on church steps near the Vatican to sing and pray Saturday morning before heading out to Tor Vergata. Romans inconvenienced, but tolerant Those Romans who didn't flee the onslaught have been inconvenienced by the additional strain on the city's notoriously insufficient public transport system. Residents are sharing social media posts of outbursts by Romans at kids flooding subway platforms and crowding bus stops that have delayed and complicated their commutes to work. But other Romans have welcomed the enthusiasm the youngsters have brought. Premier Giorgia Meloni offered a video welcome, marveling at the "extraordinary festival of faith, joy and hope" that the young people had created. "I think it's marvelous," said Rome hairdresser Rina Verdone, who lives near the Tor Vergata field and woke up Saturday to find a gaggle of police outside her home as part of the massive, 4,000-strong operation mounted to keep the peace. "You think the faith, the religion is in difficulty, but this is proof that it's not so." Verdone had already made plans to take an alternate route home Saturday afternoon, that would require an extra half-mile walk, because she feared the "invasion" of kids in her neighborhood would disrupt her usual bus route. But she said she was more than happy to make the sacrifice.
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
This 250th anniversary in San Francisco will probably pass in silence
Tuesday is the 250th anniversary of a sea voyage that went down in history. Not long before dark on a windy and cold afternoon, Aug. 5, 1775, the Royal Spanish Navy ship San Carlos entered the harbor of San Francisco Bay and anchored for the night just off the beach at what is now the Presidio. As far as anyone knows, the San Carlos was the first ship to enter San Francisco Bay. The arrival of the San Carlos set off a whole series of events. Once the Spanish found out the extent and potential of the area, they decided to send a party of colonists the very next year; they arrived in the spring of 1776. It was the beginning of San Francisco and the end of a way of life for people who had lived around the bay for thousands of years. Two hundred fifty years is a big milestone, but any story about exploration comes with baggage: colonialism and the fatal impact of European contact on native peoples. So there will be no celebration of this anniversary as far as I know. But any voyage into the unknown has a certain fascination. As a kid I devoured stories about explorers: Robert Scott in the Antarctic, Roald Amundsen on the Northwest Passage. I just finished 'The Wide Wide Sea,' Hampton Sides' book on Capt. James Cook. I never outgrew these tales. So the voyage of the San Carlos to San Francisco was a natural. The commander of the San Carlos, Teniente de Fragata (Frigate Lt.) Juan Manuel de Ayala, kept a careful log of the voyage, and it's preserved in the Council of the Indies in Madrid. The Spanish descriptions are so clear you can visit the locations Ayala wrote about. You can take a ferry to Angel Island to the cove where the San Carlos anchored for a month, or sail to Vallejo up the wide bay the Spanish named for St. Paul. Just the other day I drove to the little beach at the edge of the Presidio where the San Carlos anchored that first night in San Francisco Bay in 132 feet of water with a sandy bottom. The spot is not far from what we call the Golden Gate. It's part of a national park, popular with joggers and dog walkers. Ayala anchored the ship a quarter-mile from the beach, but Ayala didn't like the look of it: too windy, too much current, whirlpools and riptides. So in the morning he moved across the bay to Marin to a place he called Carmelita, out of the wind. You can stand on that little San Francisco beach and see that cross bay trip in your mind's eye. But the bottom was soft on the north side, and that wouldn't do either. Ayala feared losing the anchor in the mud. Ayala's chief mate and pilot, José de Cañizares, had scouted a cove on the bay's biggest island, not far away, and Ayala eventually took the ship there. As it was near her feast day, the island was named for Our Lady, Queen of the Angels — Angel Island. Another island was found to be inhospitable, with steep cliffs and hundreds of pelicans. Alcatraz. Ayala sent Cañizares, the pilot, with 10 men in a launch to explore and chart the bay. They went north and east taking soundings and mapping the shore. They went as far as Carquinez Strait, which they named for the Karquin people they met, and into Suisun Bay. Another pilot, Juan Aguirre, went south toward what became San Jose. The chart they made became the first accurate map of the bay region. Juan Manuel de Ayala was born in Andalusia and was a graduate of the Spanish naval academy. By the time he was assigned to Mexico he was 29, and after 15 years in the service was still a lieutenant. But he had a good reputation and was one of five officers hand picked by the viceroy to explore the north coast on three ships. The Spanish knew about San Francisco Bay and wanted more information. Ayala must have been disappointed when he got to San Blas, a small base near Puerto Vallarta, to be given command of the schooner Sonora, only 36 feet long and designed for inshore work. The Sonora and two other ships sailed from San Blas on the afternoon of March 21,1775, the first day of spring. There was trouble. The San Carlos, a two-masted packet boat that was the largest in the fleet, hoisted a signal. The captain, Diego Manrique, a senior lieutenant, was sick 'and unable to continue the voyage.' He'd had a mental breakdown. He became paranoid, convinced himself that persons unknown were after him. He stashed loaded pistols all over the ship. The fleet commander relieved Manrique and picked Ayala to replace him. On April 4, when the fleet was near the Port of Mazatlan, one of the pistols the unfortunate former captain had hidden away went off and shot Ayala in the foot. Ayala was so badly hurt he couldn't walk. This was in 1775, and one can only imagine the medical help available on a ship at sea. Mazatlan was not far away and Ayala could have turned back. But this was his chance — an independent command with orders to go to the uncharted port of San Francisco. So, disabled as he was, he stayed in command. The voyage was long and tedious; the San Carlos was very slow, especially when sailing against the wind and in the heavy coastal fog. It took from early April to late June to sail from Cabo San Lucas at the tip of Baja California, to Monterey, where they stopped for repairs, and nearly a week from Monterey to the Gulf of the Farallones. At sunrise on Aug. 5, the ship was at 36 degrees 42 minutes north latitude and Ayala could see what we now call the Golden Gate. The rest was history. The arrival of the San Carlos was not the first contact between the people of the Bay Area and Europeans. An expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá first sighted the bay in the fall of 1769. In 1772, another expedition, this one headed by army Capt. Pedro Fages, explored the eastern side of the bay. They calculated the latitude of the entrance to the estuary. A gap in the coastal hills looked to them like 'a gate.' Three years later, Ayala knew where to sail. The Spanish sailors found the local people 'affable and hospitable.' They came aboard the ship and invited the foreigners to their camps. They offered food and small gifts. Padre Vicente Santa Maria was quite taken with what he called 'the heathens' and tried to learn their language and culture. The voyage of the San Carlos did not create the historic drama that followed, but it set the stage. On one of his exploring trips, the pilot Aguirre came upon a little cove. On the shore were three people, weeping uncontrollably. He couldn't understand the reason for the tears, but he called it ' La Ensenada de los llorones ' — the cove of the weepers. Today it's called Mission Bay, San Francisco's newest neighborhood.
