A Shipley woman who spent five years as secretary to the captain of the QE2 has launched a new estate agency and yacht management firm in Croatia.

Mandy-Jo Walter, who has spent the past 19 years travelling the globe, has founded the new business with her fiancee and two business partners in Dubrovnik.

Azure helps both Croatian people and visitors to the country buy and sell homes as well as find luxury yachts to purchase or charter.

It was set-up this year after Mandy-Jo and her partner Edin Prguda - who she met on-board ship in Alaska in 1996 - left the Spanish island of Mallorca.

Mandy-Jo, who worked for Thomson Holidays for eight years and spent three years on the QE2, was employed by a yacht crew placement agency and an estate agency in Mallorca.

But it was destiny that the couple would eventually head out to Croatia. Back in Bradford, the old family home had been bought by a Croatian family, and became known as the Dubrovnik Hotel.

Mandy-Jo, who had first visited what was then Tito's Yugoslavia in 1979, decided the time was right to move back to Edin's home town and the couple drove the 2,000km across Europe.

The ideas were put in motion for the new business and the momentum was helped along by Croatia's emerging reputation as a tourism hotspot.

The pair were joined in the venture by a Croatian couple who were also well travelled in the yachting industry.

Mandy-Jo said that business was now beginning to boom as more and more people took an interest in the Croatian property market. Once-wary residents are now beginning to recognise the benefits of using the firm which promotes and advertises properties on the web, achieving a quicker sale.

She added: "Land inheritance holds little interest to some - especially if it is in a remote location. However this is a prime location for investors who can see the potential in having a view of the islands and coastline. More houses, apartments and land are being offered to the agencies to sell."

And she is expecting business to soar even more when Croatia joins the European Union in 2007. Luxury yachts are already beginning to pour into its Adriatic harbours in big numbers.

"Croatia has a lot of mediaeval architecture which helps to make the place very special and unique," she said. "It has a very clear sea and a very low crime rate - in a sense it is like going back to old fashioned values."

Mandy-Jo, 38, who regularly returns to the family home in Shipley, said the firm prided itself on offering a high quality, English-style service and was attracting interest from overseas visitors from locations such as the United States and South Africa. Its recently-launched website attracted 38,000 hits during July.

"All four of us have travelled around the world and know what people are looking for," she said.

For details about the company, visit www.azurecroatia.com