The first ships to enter Tillamook Bay came in the fall of 1788, when Capt. Robert Gray crossed the shallow bar with his ships, the Columbia Rediviva and the Lady Washington. Thinking it might be the mouth of the rumored Great River of the West, he set about mapping and exploring the shoreline, and thus became the first American known to have set foot on the Oregon shore. The local Salish tribes, which included the Killimuck, were not pleased with the American interlopers and skirmished with his men, killing one while losing several of their own. Gray sailed away after a few days of mapping, labeling it “Murderer’s Cove” on his charts. The name hardly fits the quiet life around Tillamook Bay today, where the picturesque boat basin at Garibaldi is home to a thriving fishing fleet.