Now that I’m back in bass-playing mood again, I can’t do with 7 weeks deprivation while I’m in North America so I’ve been scouring the second-hand and junk shops in a desultory fashion while I’ve been wandering around in Montreal.

And this is what I discovered. It’s a Squier Jaguar bass guitar – a short-scale model (which means that you can play it in a confined space like a Dodge Grand Caravan).

Made by Fender (ptah!) so they say, the world’s leading manufacturer of bass guitars, but that’s only so that people can say that they own a Fender, it’s cheap and basic. Probably about $250 worth of guitar.

But it’s surprisingly easy to play and has a very smooth action, something that took me by surprise, and so I had a good session with it in this pawn shop in the rue Queen Mary. $169 they wanted for it, but after a long and complicated negotiation that went on for a couple of days, we agreed on $100 with the case thrown in so I’m quite satisfied with that.

Talking of Dodge Grand Caravans, this is this year’s beast. 4 weeks old and with 3200 kms on the clock. The fools. It’ll have a little bit more than that on the clock when it comes back.

It’s so new that it still has this lovely new-car smell. But I wonder what smell it ill have after I’ve been sleeping in it for 7 weeks.

I’m back on the road now, and this was a photo taken at my lunch stop, the Parc St Laurent at Repentigny.

It’s not taken me long to find a ferry though, has it?

This is the crossing between St Ignace and Sorel-Tracy and the passage is delayed while the huge container ship MSC Maria-Laura comes sailing past. She’s an old Panama-registered ship of 42500 tonnes, dating from 1988 and looks every day of her age, and is on her way to Montreal via a whole series of North American ports.

In fact it was my lucky day for ships at St Ignace – there must have been half a dozen streaming in a line up the St Lawrence.

This is the Alcyone, built in 2002 and wearing the colours of the Canadian Steamship Lines but now Greek-owned. She’s come upriver on her way in from Chile via the Panama Canal. She’s a bulk carrier of 50,000 tonnes.

So now I’m at my camp site. It’s the Parc Bellerive on the River Richelieu near St Ours. This is where I’ll be staying the night. And quite a pleasant night it is too.

It’s a little noisy here fortunately, as it is on most camp sites, but I’m going to have another early night and they can all do as they like.