In 1830, the whaling company Samuel Enderby & Sons appointed Biscoe master of the brig Tula and leader of an expedition to find new sealing grounds in the Southern Ocean. Accompanied by the cutter Lively, the Tula left London and by December had reached the South Shetland Islands. The expedition then sailed further south, crossing the Antarctic Circle on 22 January 1831, before turning east at 60°S.