Gaspar de Portolà led the 1769 overland expedition, and Father Juan Crespí kept its diary. On October 28 the party camped beside the creek that runs through Half Moon Bay today, and Crespí named it Arroyo de San Simon y San Judas for the feast day.
Crespí recorded that the soldiers called the surrounding plain Los Ansares, meaning the geese, because there were so many. He also described the high rocks of Pillar Point from camp. The party camped near the shore, either at Frenchmans Creek or Pilarcitos Creek.
A few days earlier, on October 27, they had stopped at an abandoned village near the creek at what is now Purissima.
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