Rod Stewart used to sing "Every Picture Tells A Story." We don't sing but for us "Every Captain Is A Story."
Usually, all you have to do is ask.
So while on Oceania's new Riviera, we asked Captain Luca Manzi. Like most captains we've met, he was initially reluctant and, also like most, he was personable and engaging and interesting.
And as you will see, he has a sense of humor.
Born in Italy, he is the Riviera's first captain, a position he exchanges with a captain from Norway every 10 weeks. During his time off, Captain Manzi goes home to, ironically, 
Norway. That's where his wife — Vibeke, who is Norwegian — and two young children live while he guides Oceania's new cruise ship around international waters that sometimes are not far from his original home.
That would be Chiavari, an Italian Riviera town of about 30,000 residents. He came from a family with no nautical background: "Nobody in my family was doing this. My grandfather on my father's side was in the navy but there was no direct family member in the merchant marine."
Today when he returns, as he does with his wife and children every summer, Manzi finds there is largely indifference about what he does for a living.
"Greeks have a tradition, and they are the only captains who somehow manage to keep their privilege — it is still considered prestigious," he explains. "In Italy, I've got a few friends and I still have to explain what I do for a living. I have a couple of months vacation and they are completely confused. They say: 'What do you do, sailing?' Translated, it's exactly the same word used in Italian to surf the Internet. So now I say I do nothing for a living."
His path to Oceania is only slightly typical. Nautical school followed high school, then the Naval Academy and two and a half years in the Italian Navy.
Then, time to reflect.
"I was not yet fully satisfied," Capt. Manzi recalls. "One way to look at it is that this was a good school for life, for discipline and for rules. What I was missing was the action. I wasn't satisfied with having medals on my chest just for sailing 3,000 or 4,000 miles, and so I asked: 'Am I in the right place?'"
About 23 years ago, he joined the merchant marine and worked his way up to first officer on a cargo ship.
"That was in 1995. We are very unstable people. We are always looking for something better. I was not 100 per cent happy with the life and by then my dream was to be on a passenger ship. I applied for two or three different management jobs on a passenger ship. One hired me as a second officer on a small ship with Renaissance Cruises."
His promotional timing was a little off. After six years on 120-passenger vessels that he calls "practically private yachts" he became a captain…just as Renaissance was going bankrupt. Its ships — known in the industry as the "R" ships — were afloat but all the captains had to do was maintain them.
That changed in 2003: "Oceania had one ship and I had a chance to go back as a staff captain. I had to go down a level but it was that or being captain of a dead ship. It was no choice."
Since then, he has worked on all four Oceania ships, five if you count the now-departed Insignia. He delivered Riviera's older sister, the Marina, from the shipyard and a year later 
did the same with the ship that would be his after supervising the last six months of Riviera's construction in Genoa.
"I am honored to be the first captain," he adds. "If you are lucky in life you can have something happen to you one time. Some people wait their whole career for something like this. Was I nervous? Yes and no. More excited and happy."
Like most cruise ship captains, his English is excellent…although he mildly disagrees.
"But the first time on a ship my English was close to zero," he says. "I never practiced the proper way. Fortunately, this [Oceania] is an American company. That helped a lot. If I went to England, they would say I speak poor English but it is the ship's English."
At 45, he has been a captain for eight years, and he's just getting started.
"I will stay on ships until I am 85, God willing!" he laughs. "I have no problem to stay even longer than that….but that is how it used to be. The pool was unlimited and captains really would stay until they were 75 or 80, so they were not moving. If you don't clear the top, you don't move up."
By taking command of the Riviera, Luca Manzi is at the top…not clearing it.
Holland America Eurodam
10 nights
October 4, 2012
New York, Newport, Gloucester, Bar Harbor, Halifax, Sydney, Charlottetown, Saguenay, Quebec City
Inside: $1,099
Cost per day: $109
www.hollandamerica.com