AS a ship's captain, I was used to early-morning port arrivals. In most ports in the world, if you arrive alongside at 5am, then the entire ship's complement of passengers and crew have to assemble for immigration clearance, like it or not.
While the passengers and even some crew members may grumble, telling armed immigration officers it's too early and they should come back at a more reasonable hour is akin to standing against the nearest brick wall and asking to be shot.
I am surprised, therefore, David Bookbinder (Derby Telegraph, November 8), is suing his cruise operator for being woken up at 3.30am when his ship arrived at the port of Eilat, in Israel, in order to clear immigration.
I have to ask myself if Mr Bookbinder, when handing his passport to the Israeli immigration officer, proceeded to berate the official for having been dragged out of his bed at such an ungodly hour. I think not. But that does not appear to have stopped him taking his frustrations out on the cruise ship company.
Recently, I spent two hours in an immigration queue after landing at Heathrow along with several hundred other passengers. Would there have been any point in shouting that this was unreasonable due to the lateness of the hour, or would it have been appropriate to sue the airline for what is clearly the fault of the immigration officials for being inconvenienced? Of course it would not; if you wish to travel, you've got to put up with this sort of thing, particularly given the problems we have with terrorism these days!
David Bookbinder will be seen by Derby's seafarers as just another jumped-up politician who thinks he's far too important to undergo the port arrival procedures.
The captain of the ship on which he sailed will have to had to make a statement to the company's solicitors, a task that would have taken a couple of hours at least.
As captain, my hours of work were stated by my company to be 87 per week. For a cruise ship captain it would be double that.
Peter J Newton
Bradmoor Grove
Chellaston
Editor's note: The claim has been resolved since this letter was received – see Page 17.