A PORT Douglas boatie has told how he hauled a shipwrecked sailor to safety from croc-infested mangroves at Dickson Inlet.

The man, who identified himself to rescuers only as Colin, swam ashore from a sinking 4m dinghy through mangroves teeming with crocs toward the lights of Port Douglas before his screams alerted local boatie Nick Malachi, 47, about 8.30pm yesterday.

"We heard a ‘help me, help me’," Mr Malachi senior told The Cairns Post yesterday.

With his son "Little" Nick, 20, the long-time Port Douglas resident commandeered a tinnie from nearby restaurant Zeus and scoured the darkened water for the source of the cries.

"I grabbed my big two-million candlepower torch and then hopped in the dinghy and went straight across the river," Mr Malachi said.

In the torch beam the pair spied "a half naked man in metres of water about to try to swim across from the far side".

The two hauled the man to safety in the tinnie.

"He said he was in his boat and it was drifting and sinking at same time," Mr Malachi said.

"It sank and went underwater, then he left it, swam ashore all the way to the mangroves."

The long-time Port Douglas resident told Colin he was lucky to have escaped the inlet’s ferocious marine life.

"I told him about the crocs, the bull sharks and the bull rays that can kill you, and I told him about the box jellyfish," he said.

Sen-Constable Luke Stephenson spoke to the rescued boatie last night and said he was unharmed after his swim, which began in daylight, after setting out to sea in the borrowed dinghy at 3pm.

Boating and fisheries officers are investigating allegations of unlicensed boating and failure to carry safety equipment.

Port Douglas Coast Guard raced to a report of the stranded man, only to find he had vanished after being put ashore, and has issued a warning to boaties to carry out checks before voyages.

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