We pulled into Marina Papagayo on Saturday afternoon and Dan the dock master met us at the slip. Although the cost to clear in the country in Costa Rica is minimal, Dan said we had to use the marina's agent to clear in. The cost was over $350. That was on top of the the marina's slip price of $2 per foot, per night (about $100 per night for us). We'd decided to spend the money for a slip, but weren't prepared for the agent fee. The cruising guide said we'd have the option of clear in ourselves. Dan said the cruising guide was wrong - again!
I started to cry, it was just too much for me. Tom was very ill, I had a fever and hardly slept the night before due to flu-like body aches. We'd lost our anchor and had two close calls with our secondary anchor dragging. Our only safe, option was a mooring (there were none) or a marina. We explained our predicament to Dan. He made some phone calls and then informed us that everything was closed for the weekend so there would be no clearing in until Monday. He agreed to let us stay, under quarantine so we couldn't leave the marina, but then we could take the boat to Playa del Coco on Monday to see the Port Captain, etc.The Marina and Four Season's Resort are five star. There was a pool, a very nice bar/restaurant with a killer daily happy hour with food and drink specials, a crew theater/lounge, a store and other amenities. On top of that, Dan comped us the first night since we'd arrived so late in the afternoon. When we went to his office to register he even made a calls and got out marine supply catalogs to help us try to locate an anchor. It was so nice to be treated so well by Dan and his staff, especially in our fragile state.