You are listening to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service. I'm Marnie Chesterton.

And the noise that you can hear all around me is the empty Santa Maria. The Crowd Science is a show that takes your questions about life, the universe or whatever,

and then travels the world to answer them.

We've had a question from listener Tom, and Tom we have you here with us what is your question for us.

I would like to know if it's feasible for water that's fresh drinking water to be transported by sea in bulk to countries that don't have any.

Okay and that's why we're on a tanker at the moment but Tom why did you ask this question why you're interested?

Well I was prompted by the recent fall in the oil price and it occurred to me that water's a

commodity at which people are very short of in California for example or in Australia and with changing

climates and population growth it's becoming valuable and I just thought as a

former seafarer it might be economically viable now to bulk transport

fresh water around the world. Former seafarers, so you've spent your life on

ships like this? I have indeed. And now we're taking you back to one? Yes, it's

back down memory lane, yeah.

Well, it's new and exciting for me and my producer,

Maraker, but we're just wondering,

does Malta where you live, does that have a problem with water?

It does really.

They manage the water extremely well and they make it from salt water.

The tourists, they're here for two weeks in the sun.

They forget when they're having their two showers a day at their luxury bath and what have you

that we don't have water really we're probably the least rainfall of any country in Europe.

So water to us is something we have to look after.

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