You got me wondering and I thought maybe there was some kind of gas diffusion where carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean water instead of building up in the

You got me wondering and I thought maybe there was some kind of gas diffusion where carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean water instead of building up in the enclosed space, and finding the most closely related stack exchange question I think I’m satisfied with this answer: probably that four-foot bubble communicated with a larger volume or air under the hull of the boat - and that's the most reasonable explanation of this miraculous survival. When picturing it we might assume the rest of the boat is flooded and this pocket of air is all that remained but that may not be the case. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/67970/surviving-under-water-in-air-bubble https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/67970/surviving-...