Boatie marooned for only one day off Central Queensland - but his ship was stripped bare

A boatie who says he was stranded on an uninhabited island off Central Queensland for more than a day has told Seven News his remarkable story.

He's thanked his rescuers profusely, but said he is devastated that looters stripped his boat.

Now, Bobby Bonnici is picking over the wreck of his boat, smashed to pieces on a beach near Yeppoon.

Very little is salvageable and Bonnici says he is "absolutely devastated".

The Mackay boatie says he was snorkelling off Great Keppel Island on Australia Day when his speedboat pulled anchor and drifted.

"The more I swam, the further the boat got away from me, so I swam as fast as I could, harder and harder," he says.

He made it to Middle Island but no-one was there. He spotted his boat and tried to swim again.

An hour and a half later, he managed to reach the rocks on Miall Island, by which stage he had been stranded for three hours.

"By this time, I was quite fatigued. No water, no food," he said.

On Miall Island he found some oysters, ate them, and fell asleep.

He woke up to the sounds of a helicopter flying above him, but the chopper flew on, not noticing the SOS he had written in the sand.

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He spent a night on the island trying to sleep in a creek bed before a passing boat spotted him after he put flippers on his hands and waved them above his head.

Back on dry land he phoned his wife, who told him the boat had washed up at Yeppoon.

When he got back to his boat, to his dismay, it had been looted and vandalised.

"We're in Australia," he said. "That's not Australian."

While Bonnici is still in one piece after his ordeal, the same can't be said for his boat, which has been declared a write-off.