Tobin, a skilled amateur artist, replaced the official artist on board Bligh's Providence, W. Kirkpatrick, after the latter had withdrawn ill. Tobin had served on several vessels including the Namur, the Bornbay Castle and the frigate Thisbe before, in 1891, joining Bligh on his second voyage to the South Seas. The voyage took him to Van Diemen's Land and on to Tahiti to collect breadfruit-trees. Tenerife was a port of call en route.

Tobin's journal of the voyage, which includes some watercolours, was never published and is not in the Mitchell Library, Sydney