Some people fish for fun, some consider it a sport, others fish because they have blooming[11] well got to. I am one of them. Down here the job is often anything but a joyous one in cold driving wind and snow, fingers so cold that one can scarcely remove the hooks from the fishes’ mouths. Sometimes the blizzards sweep down and it is all we can do to fight our way inch by inch back to the ship....

Macklin writes in this connexion:

The fish here are of excellent quality and have the peculiarity that when cooked they do not taste fishy. Green usually fries them in olive oil and they are particularly good. The best spots for finding fish are in belts of kelp close to the edge where the tides sweep in and out. Whale meat (not blubber) makes a good bait and a spinner (or any piece of bright tin) helps to attract the fish. One can usually moor the boat to the strands of kelp, but it is advisable always to have on board a small kedge anchor and a good length of line in case of being swept away by the blizzards which blow from the hills with strong, sudden blasts.

Green is a great enthusiast, and is always willing to come, whatever the weather....

There is no sport in the actual fishing, for the fish abound in great quantities and are very sluggish. The chief art lies in knowing just where to go for them. There are two kinds, which we speak of as “ordinary” fish and “crocodile” fish. The first, as the name implies, have nothing peculiar about them. The latter have immense mouths with crocodile-shaped jaws and look hideous. The tail is small, and indeed it may be said that there is more mouth than anything else.

The trip to Gritviken was uneventful and we arrived there the same day.

Before leaving South Georgia we had rather a sad duty to perform. For a long time I had desired to erect some mark which would serve to perpetuate the memory of Sir Ernest Shackleton. We had no time to do it before we left for the South, for every day was precious and it was essential that we should get away at the earliest possible moment. After some consideration I decided that the mark should take the form of a cairn surmounted by a cross, and I selected as a site for it a prominent spot on the headland which stands out from the lower slopes of Duse Fell, at the entrance to Gritviken harbour. I determined that it should be the work of his comrades, something which we ourselves could create without help from outside sources. Everyone on board was anxious to have a hand in the building, so I arranged things that they might do so. On the night of our arrival the temperature fell very low and the surface of the harbour froze over, not sufficiently to permit of walking but enough to make it an extremely difficult matter to get the boat to the shore. Also snow fell thickly. We broke a way through the ice and proceeded to the headland, where we made a search for suitable building stone. There was none convenient, and to obtain it we had to go some distance up the hillside to where a shoulder of rock jutted out through the tussock grass. Having removed the snow we bored the rock and blasted it with sabulite, afterwards breaking away suitable pieces with crowbar and pick. For sledging it down the hill we had to make special box-containers; even then with the steepness of the declivity and the roughness of the track it was a difficult matter to prevent the loads from falling off. The work was awkward and hard; on several occasions the sledges broke away and careered down the slippery hillside with the men clinging desperately behind. No one grudged the labour and time spent, for it was the last job we should do for the Boss. The foundations were laid and the cairn began to grow. There were no expert masons amongst us, but the work when completed had a most pleasing appearance. Into the stone we cemented a brass plate on which was engraved very simply:

SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON
Explorer
DIED HERE, JANUARY 5TH, 1922.
ERECTED BY HIS COMRADES.

The cairn is solid and will stand the ravages of frost and blizzards for many years to come.