After meeting Carnival Captain Andrea Viacava, there was only one question on our minds. How can you not like this man?
He’s a character. One of the things we discussed in a wide-ranging discussion on the bridge of the Ecstasy was navigation, and how he has seen it change over the years.
“I started in 1972,” he says. “I started like a cadet. We had one radar, and the captain kept it like he was a little child with a new toy. Now we have at least three GPS systems. If the first one goes down, you have the second. If the second goes down, you have a third. If the third goes down…I go to church.”
Captain Viacava comes from Italy, as most Carnival captains do. His hometown is Portofino, near Genoa, and today he lives in Cincinnati, but his real home is the sea. He’s been on ships all his life, and there’s a good reason why.
“My Dad,” he says. “The sea was in his family. He had eleven brothers and sisters and only one of his sister’s didn’t go. All the others went to sea. So for me it was natural. And one of the most famous [naval] schools was 200 yards from my house, and the money was good. When I start, I make what my Dad made in three months.”
He talked about cooking…
“I am cooking when I get a little stress. When I am stressed, I go down in the galley and cook a meal. I cook something every day. Gnocci, risotto with pumpkin…I do everything. Sometimes I cook for 40 persons.”
And octopus fishing…
“This is octopus season. Look at those boats. What is it they have on them — two large sticks? They have a net and when the wind blows the lines, they catch the octopus. I don’t know how it happens, it just does. They catch about 11,000 tons of octopus each season. I’m always trying to figure it out, but I don’t know.”
And what he does when someone goes overboard…
“I always go back if it happens. If I don’t do that I go to jail.”
When we met him, Captain Viacava was on the Ecstasy. These days, he is on the Inspiration, also in the Caribbean.
Inspiration…now that’s a good ship for him.