Crossword-Solution: ESTERO 6 letters, 11 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 6

From here, instead of proceeding over the Sierra de Santa Lucia by the Cuesta pass into the upper Salinas valley, whence the march to Monterey would have been easy, they turned to the west and followed the Cañada de los Osos to the sea at Morro Bay, which they called El Estero de San Serafin.

Rivera reported that south of the Point of Pines and between it and another point to the south (Point Cármelo) was a small ensenada, where a stream of water came down from the mountains and emptied into an estero; that beyond this the coast was so high and impenetrable they were obliged to turn back, and he believed that it was the same sierra which compelled them to leave the coast on the 16th of September.

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.

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.

Proceeding a short distance up the beach, they turned into the mountains on their right, and from the summit beheld the immense estero o brazo del mar.