SANTA CRUZ ISLAND
While traversing the shore of Santa Bárbara channel, the Portolá expedition of 1769 took time to make trips to the islands and bestow names upon them. The island of Santa Cruz received its name from a rather trivial circumstance. By some chance the padres lost there a staff which bore a cross on the end. They gave it up as irretrievably lost, so were the more pleased when the Indians appeared the following day to restore it. From this they gave the island the name of Santa Cruz (Holy Cross).