Local & State Headlines

World travel comes to Albany

• An Albany native returns home and launches an international business.

Barbara Rivera Holmes

Visit www.luckyyachting.com

ALBANY — Albany is a long way from Turkey, but Rue Morrison isn’t letting a little geography get in the way of business.

Morrison, an Albany native who recently returned to the city after more than 20 years in New Orleans, has launched a private yacht charter business that offers a luxury vacation sailing along Turkey’s Mediterranean Sea coast.

“There’s a huge tourism market (in Turkey) for Americans and Europeans, and yachting is one of the major aspects,” said Morrison, who runs the American office of the business from his family home in downtown Albany.

On vacation, he said, “You can do nothing or everything and anything in between while the most fantastic scenery in the world changes.”

A TASTE OF TURKEY

Morrison, who like his late parents is an interior designer, first visited Turkey in 1998 when a friend invited him to the country for Thanksgiving.

“I went and had a good time,” he said. “I went back two years later, and there was something about that trip that set the hook. ... Then I just started going nearly every season.”

Then one year, Morrison and two friends chartered a yacht and “we spent a week out and just had a wonderful time,” he said. “At the end of that trip I just really hated to leave.”

By then, Morrison was thinking about buying an apartment or farm house in Turkey.

“But the captain said, ‘Why do you want to buy a house? Why don’t you buy a boat?’ ”

In November, Morrison purchased a 74-foot, all mahogany, antique motor-sailing yacht “with first-class amenities,” he said.

The yacht is being redecorated and will be ready for summer. Next month, Rue and Crystal Morrison (no relation), his housemate and American liaison, leave for Turkey for a month to ensure all is as it should be.

LUXURY VACATION

Cruising the Mediterranean on a privately chartered yacht isn’t cheap.

For Morrison’s three-cabin yacht, the all-inclusive rate is about 600 euros per day and 5,600 per week. With 1 euro worth $1.56 (USD), that converts to roughly $950 per day and $8,800 per week.

“Boats of comparable value (to Morrison’s) in the Caribbean (Sea) are more expensive, and in France and Italy, too,” he said.

“Even with Americans’ diminished purchasing power in both the euro and the Turkish lira,” he said, “one can still get a much bigger value in terms of chartering a yacht.”

If his yacht is booked, Morrison can act as an gent in finding another boat.

“It’s really designed to tailor a vacation to your needs,” he said, “and find the boat that’s best suited to your party and your price range.”

Morrison’s rate covers everything from a crew of three; fuel for four hours of daily cruising; breakfast, lunch, dinner and afternoon tea and drinks; and vacation- planning services such as finding airfare specials to Istanbul and booking tours and guides for customers who want to go on land.

“We provision the boat. We go to the fish market, the meat market, the green grocer and the regular grocery store and just buy a ton of food,” Morrison said. “What kind of juices do you like? Is there anything you cannot eat?

“Once you arrive,” he said, “everything is ready for you.”

The cuisine is Turkish, which he said is “immaculately fresh, has excellent meats and salads, and (meat dishes aside) is perfectly suited to vegetarian tastes.”

ISTANBUL WAS CONSTANTINOPLE

“If I mention going to Turkey,” Morrison said, “I get one of two responses: ‘I love it. Isn’t it wonderful?’ and ... ‘Is it safe?’ Yes, it’s safe. Yes, it’s so much different than America in terms of friendliness. ... It’s amazing.

“I’ve never met anyone who has been (to Turkey) and hasn’t made it first on their list.”

Morrison is well-educated on all things art, and easily shares this knowledge with others.

“If you look back to history, Asia Minor essentially ... is where civilization began,” he said.

“You have prehistoric civilization and, (other than in) Greece, the land that is now Turkey was the real center of the Greek world,” he said, later talking about Hellenistic art. “There are more Greek and Roman ruins and artifacts in Turkey than there are in Italy and Greece combined.”

Indeed, Constantinople — whose namesake is emperor Constantine, though in 1930 the Turkish government changed the capital’s name to Istanbul — was at one point the capital of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine/East Roman Empire, the Latin Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

FROM ALBANY?

Morrison isn’t concerned about running a cross-Atlantic operation from his Pine Avenue home.

During season, which is May through October, Morrison will live in Turkey, assisting customers with the Turkish side of their vacation.

“Most of our business this year will probably be primarily European,” he said. “Americans tend to plan their holidays a year in advance, and (by) not having her (the yacht) complete until we get there (to Turkey in May), most Americans have already made their summer plans.”

In Albany, Crystal Morrison will coordinate all U.S. business.

In the Internet age, an ocean isn’t such an obstacle at all.

More Headlines>>