IT WAS a romantic meeting between a ship's captain and a ship's nurse many years ago aboard the P&O Princess that saw Fabio Foglia and his wife Fiona eventually marry.
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"We met on one of the 'Love Boats', the Fair Princess, and as it happens I was sick every day," Mr Foglia said.
"I spent quite a bit of time in the sick bay, so much so the passengers thought I was their doctor."
Mr Foglia has also worked on ferry boats across the English channel but now works on commercial bulk carriers carrying coal and grain. He loves every minute of his profession.
"I do disappear for three or four months at a time and then when I am at home, I'm home full time," he said.
He said one of the strangest loads he has carried was coal ashes from a power plant to the US.
The ashes are added to cement to make an anti-earthquake mix used in the construction industry.
The family calls the Italian city of Genova home, but visits Australia as often as they can to spend time with Mrs Foglia's family who live in Dubbo.
"For the first six years after we married I was able to come to Australia every year, but it has been three years now since I visited," he said.
"I had vacation every winter (being in the Northern Hemisphere), so myself, Fiona, and our son Nicholas could spend time here.''
Mr Foglia was born and raised in Genova, which is situated on the Italian Riveria, on Italy's north west coast.
"We are quite different in the way we live, being Mediterranean," he said.
"We're more vocal, more expressive, touchy, if you will, but Australians are more relaxed."
"In Italy and Europe we live to work whereas here you work to live. It's a different approach to life I think."
