Tag Archives: iguana sculpture

Sculptor in the Sand

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                                                                     Sculptor in the Sand

Mario Gagnon is retired from his life as a hospital maintenance engineer in Quebec, but when we retire from our profession, we do not retire from our interests, and his lifetime fondness for what he calls “decorating” comes with him when he comes to the beach.  Like most of those camping beachside, he has made the palapa living area of his campsite “homely” in only one usage of the word.  From hammocks to wall sconces fashioned from fruiting bundles of palm trees, his environs are beautiful in addition to comfortable.

I revisited him yesterday, partially because I’d forgotten to take a picture of him when I met him on the second day I visited, but I was also there because of my curiosity over whether he altered his sculpture each day.  I did find him fussing with the tail of the iguana, but that was perhaps just staging for the bypasser who was currently taking his picture.  When the “interloper” (kidding) departed, it was my turn.

This time it was a female neighbor who translated for us and she explained to me something that I had not cottoned on to the first time we’d met.  “He can’t understand you because he is deaf and he can’t read your lips because he doesn’t speak English!  Formerly, I had thought his friend was interpreting only because of the language barrier, and when I spoke Spanish, thinking it was closer to French, it hadn’t helped much either. Trying to imagine what the beach would be like without its sounds to accompany it,  I asked him if he could feel the pounding of the surf. “Yes, he told me, “because I am deaf, my other senses are stronger.  When I smell a fire, I can tell how long ago it was lit, what is burning and what was used to start the fire.”

This dapper, handsome man was generous in sharing his art, his home away from home and his time.  Here are some of the pictures I took of his world:

(Please click on first photo to enlarge and view gallery.)

The artist––Mario Gagnon
Palm fruiting pod sconces
The artist at rest
When I asked if I could photograph his living space, “Wait, wait!” he cried and scurried around perfecting his environment.

If you didn’t see the first segment I did on Mario’s wonderful beach sculpture of the iguana, to see it, go HERE.

Iguanas in the Sand

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Iguanas in the Sand

One thing I’ve discovered after six years of time spent in La Manzanilla is that it is never going to be the same experience two years (and often two days) in a row.  One year the beach was covered by thousands of crystalline mounds of jellyfish that looked like snow globes that had wound up in the wrong climate.  Another year, the beach was covered with coral, yet another with stones.  One year we couldn’t swim because of a red tide and another due to all the sea lice (miniscule jellyfish larvae) in the water.  Last year, three different mantas and a large sea turtle beached themselves,  I found a blue-footed booby washed up on the sand and helped to set out hundreds of tiny sea turtles to make their way out into the ocean.  There was also a month of feeding frenzy as hundreds of pelicans, gulls and other sea birds dived like kamikazes into the ocean around me and this ritual was repeated day after day.

This year, for the first month I was here, there were practically no birds–a signal as sure as the vanishing of fish tacos at Pedro’s that the fish had moved elsewhere due to those same warm waters that had caused Hurricane Patricia.  In this fifth week of my stay, the fish have come back, although not in the numbers of former years.

But as in other years, there have been a number of rewards that compensated for days I couldn’t (wouldn’t) go into the ocean due to the opening of the lagoon and its drainage into the ocean. The resultant dirty water and odor caused me to walk farther up the beach than I have recently and those journeys led to the three different adventures involving iguanas that are pictured below:

(Click on first picture to enlarge photos and then click on each arrow to advance to the next photo.)

I first came upon this (sadly) dead iguana partially buried in the sand.
It was so beautiful that I couldn’t stop taking pictures of it.
Each part of it’s luxuriously colored body was so vivid.
I loved the golden “comb” on its back
as well as the graceful position it had been arranged in by the tide.
Although I’d seen iguanas in Puerto Vallarta, I’ve never seen them here in La Manzanilla.
And I don’t remember them being this beautifully colored.
As I drew nearer, I discovered that it was a very large piece of driftwood that someone had added split dried palm branches to to form the “comb.”

Today I was fortunate enough to meet the man who created the iguana sculpture.  His name is Mario Gugnon, a retired hospital maintenance coordinator from Quebec.  He says he found the large driftwood piece several years ago and to him it looked like an iguana with it’s left hind foot caught in a trap.  He added the palm fronds and has been doing so each year since.  In between Mario’s visits, the manager of the campground puts it away in safe keeping.  When I asked if he worked in other media he said no, he was not an artist.  He just likes decorating things.  In illustration, he pointed out their tastefully appointed and comfortable little terraza under the canopy.  But that is the subject for a different posting. (Update: I’ve now made that post as well. You can read it HERE.)

La Manzanilla is the perfect town and beach for someone who dreads repetition. It has been a new adventure every day this trip and I can’t type, edit and post fast enough to keep up with the stories.  Another day, another saga.  Thanks for joining me as I try to take it all in.

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Sea lice – stay safe at the beach!

http://www.buysafesea.com/sea_lice.php

are actually the microscopic larvae of jellyfish and other ocean stingers which contain the same nematocysts (stinging cells) as mommy and daddy. In many areas of the Gulf and Caribbean the primary culprit causing “sea lice” infestations is the larvae of the thimble jellyfish.