It was another roasting hot morning. Christi started the day with a huge breakfast. We hadn’t read any reports that indicated the quarantine person would confiscate food, but we have had it happen enough times in other places that she is now a little paranoid about it. It was her mission to use up all the eggs and produce that were the most likely confiscation targets, and we succeeded in eating most of it up before we were so full we felt like we were going to explode.

We were at Land & Sea waiting for the quarantine officer promptly at 0900. She showed up at 0930 and apologized for not being in the office yesterday afternoon. Said was daughter was sick and she had to take the girl to the hospital. Much to our relief, she didn’t want to inspect the boat and did the paperwork on Land and Sea’s back patio. She asked the usual questions, such as “do you have any weapons or plants on board?” By 1000 her paperwork was filled out. She gave us a form and told us to take it to the National bank close to her office to pay the fees, then to return to her office for the clearance.

We shared a cab with her and five minutes later were at the bank. To enter, one has to go through a special metal detector machine. You actually step into a glass box about the size of a telephone booth. The door shuts behind you, then when the machine gives the OK, the door on the other side opens and you can go inside the bank. There are armed guards on both sides of the metal detector machine. It is kind of crazy.

Eric got in line to have the form processed. It was a slow moving line that took a long time. He was most unhappy when he found out that he had to wait in an even longer line to pay the form processing fee. Fortunately, the second line moved faster. By 1100, we had a “paid” receipt in hand. We walked back to the quarantine office, gave her the receipt, and within five minutes she had the paperwork all finished up. Like all the other officials, the quarantine officer was pleasant to deal with.

We walked the few blocks to the Port Captain’s office, the last stop in the process. Since he had already reviewed all our paperwork, the Port Captain simply asked to see the clearance stamps from all the other offices to ensure that we had visited every office. We were in and out in 5 minutes.

We have to say that Costa Rica wins for the most stops needed to clear into a country. Immigration, Customs, Quarantine, bank, Quarantine and Port Captain. Even Fiji, the hardest check in we have done yet, didn’t have as many stops required.

We went to lunch at a restaurant that the ex-pat we had met yesterday recommended. She said it was the best restaurant in town. We both got white fish stuffed with shrimp and topped with a cream sauce. But Christi’s sauce had mushrooms, and Eric’s sauce had jalapenos. Both were excellent. Eric really like jalapenos. The fish was accompanied with tasteless deep fried green plantains. We guess that is just how they are prepared down here, and the yummy plantains Christi had made following a recipe that called for lime and rum must not be the standard fare.

After lunch, we contemplated hiking up into the wildlife preserve behind the town to see the wild animals and exotic plants. But, it was really, really hot out, the mountain is really, really tall, and the road is really, really steep. We decided an almost vertical hike was too strenuous given the heat.

We instead spent the afternoon planning an itinerary for the rest of our time in Costa Rica. The things we want to do are mostly inland and to the north, so were planning to take Kosmos to a marina in the north and make a two or three day jaunt inland. We were most dismayed at what we found. Costa Rica has the most expensive marinas we have seen anywhere in the world. There are only three towns that we know of with marinas, all with prices ranging from $120 to $210 per day. Mid-range hotels don’t even cost $120 a day in Costa Rica! We weren’t considering leaving Kosmos at anchor unattended, but we found out that wasn’t a viable financial option, either. In all these places, the dinghy dock fee is $50 per day and we’d have to pay for every day the dinghy was tied to their dock. Oh, and these other marinas have surge issues, which would make us nervous about being away from Kosmos.

We decided our best plan was to leave Kosmos here on the mooring in the flat, double protected gulf. We asked Tim if he would watch Kosmos for us and run generator if the battery got too low. He said he’d be happy to do it for $2.00 per day, which is the bargain of the century. We also hired him to clean Kosmos’ bottom. Christi doesn’t want to get into the cold water. Once that was sorted out, we looked into transportation. Lonely Planet said the roads are heinous and strongly advised against renting a car, but the truth is unless we join a package tour group, there is no other way to get to the various sites we want to visit. Tim told us the roads are fine and Katie arranged a car rental for us.

While at Land and Sea making arrangements, we noticed a lot, and we mean a lot of birds on shore. Most of them are either buzzards or vultures, not sure which. They are really big and seeing huge numbers of them is a little intimidating. It makes you wonder what they know that you don’t. There were a lot of egrets walking along the shore, as well as some small birds that look like small, gray egrets. We are guessing those are baby egrets, but they could be another species. There were a few more species flitting about that we didn’t recognize, very colorful and attractive. We can see why they like it here. It is so close to nature.

A couple of side notes”¦ first, we noticed that just like at La Playita, here the current determines which direction Kosmos faces, not the wind direction. We still find it strange every time the wind hits us on the side or rear because we are used to always facing into the wind at anchor/mooring. The current here is very strong. The other thing is that, just like in Panama City, there is an abundance of cabs. We have not waited more than 5 minutes for a cab yet. And, even more so than in Panama City, the drivers will pick up everyone they pass along the way, trying to keep the cab 100% full all the time. Cab fares are cheap. You can go anywhere at all in town for about $1.00 each USD.