DAVID Edge is the man behind salvage operations on 29 of the 80-plus boats strewn across Whitsunday shores thanks to Cyclone Debbie.

But when he began his epic task he didn't even have dry clothes.

On the day the cyclone hit, the Whitsunday resident of some 31 years was bunkered down in his home at Edges Boat Yard, deep in the mangroves past Jubilee Pocket.

Technically he shouldn't have been there.

According to Whitsunday Regional Council's flood zone mapping this was a "red zone" and residents had been told to evacuate.

But David had been through six cyclones in his three decades of living in the Whitsundays and he thought he knew what to expect.

And while Debbie may have exceeded his expectations one of his predictions turned out to be correct.

He was going to need his two salvage barges.

"Before the eye, the boatyard office blew away and then the roof peeled off my house. I was getting wet inside," he recalled.

"I had eight mooring lines on each barge and they were chafing and breaking. So I went out in the excavator to put more lines on - and I was worried about the glass blowing in on me.

"The leaves were peeling off the mangrove trees and it was like a swarm of locusts.

"I could only see 10 metres in front of me with all of them swirling around and if one hit you it was like someone throwing a rock at you."

Even at this early stage, David knew there were boats in the bay already in peril.

"I knew there were boats breaking up because the water in the creek had diesel in it - I could smell it and I could see the (film of) oil," he said.

With no roof on his house and all his possessions ruined, David rode out the rest of the cyclone in the cab of his excavator inside his shed.

Like the rest of the region's residents he emerged when it was over to a devastating scene.

"I didn't have any dry clothes (and) I was sort of bewildered," he said.

"We had no power, but luckily my salvage barge had power and I knew we had work to do."

That work, for David and his salvage crew, consisting of an excavator driver, engineer, deckhand and skipper, was about to start.

Insurance companies immediately enlisted his services, with boats aground at Hayman and Hamilton islands among his first tasks.

For boats that had sunk, the team at David Edge Marine would utilise their crane barge, lifting the hulls out of the water on big slings, patching holes and towing them back to the marinas to be assessed.

For those that had been blown ashore, onto rocks or into mangroves, the winch barge, cables and excavator became the tools of choice.

"We dig a channel back to the boat and winch it back out to the water," David explained.

"We set large ship's anchors behind the barge so the barge doesn't move when we're winching. Some boats take up to 20 tonnes of line pull."

It was the latter method David and his crew predominantly employed at Shute Harbour where some of the most shocking scenes would be found.

Other memories etched indelibly in his mind were the broken 65ft Princess yacht on Dent Island worth a couple of million dollars and the carnage at Laguna Quays.

"That was obliterated," he said.

"All to nothing - the marina, everything."

There was also the 40ft steel boat on the Whisper Bay rock wall he described as looking like a "crumpled up tin can" and the $2.5million catamaran dragged off Titan Island in the Dent Passage early last week.

But with the insurance jobs now coming to an end, the bigger picture is far from complete.

David estimates while he salvaged almost a third of the total number of stranded boats, a further 20 were floated off on high tides and about 10 are "completely missing, just gone without a trace".

Many of the boats left are uninsured and the question of who pays for their removal remains.

David believes it's now up to the owners of these boats to foot the bill, or where that isn't possible, sign them over to the state.

So as someone who's seen far too many shipwrecks on the Whitsunday coast in his time, what does he think the solution is?

"It should be like when you pay your rego on your car," he said, referring to the compulsory third party insurance aspect.

"You pay so much for boat registration I think incorporated into that should be some sort of insurance - that way everyone's covered who's registered.

"And if you got everyone on board it could probably come down to some sort of reasonable price.

"That's once of the problems now. Insurance is expensive. And this is the Whitsundays, where everyone's got a boat."

Work aside, David also has his own life to get back on track.

"My house has still got no roof on it, although it's tarped up, and I haven't had a day off since (the cyclone) happened, so I've got all that ahead of me," he said.

"It's definitely been the busiest period we've ever had."