A year later another examination of the Port Cooper and Banks Peninsula district, to assess its suitability for his own farming venture, was made by the William Deans, a pioneering Wellington settler who had arrived by the "Aurora" in 1840. Deans sailed from Wellington on 15 July 1842 on the cutter "Brothers", with Captain Bruce, which served the southern whaling stations. In this cruise, after visiting Port Cooper, Akaroa and the Banks Peninsula whaling stations, Deans went as far south as Jacobs River on Foveaux Strait. When he returned on 3 September the Wellington newspapers published a full report of his notes on the nine whaling stations he had visited, but confined reports on his remarks about the Port Cooper country to the statement: ‘We hear he brings highly favourable information of that locality.’ Yet it was the impression he gained of the Port Cooper district during this cruise, in which he had seen a great deal of the South Island, that confirmed Deans in the decision to settle there — a decision that led to the first effective occupation of the Canterbury Plains. He had found it impossible to get suitable land in Wellington and he had a very poor opinion of Nelson. Immediately after his return to Wellington he began preparations to break up his establishment at Eastbourne, on Wellington harbour, and to transfer it to Port Cooper.