The number of containers recovered and brought to shore from the Rena wreck at Astrolabe Reef has reached the 800 mark with a total of 815 now onshore.

Good weather and calm seas are permitting good progress on Rena cargo recovery with 29 containers landed by Tuesday this week. There were 1368 on board when the ship struck the Astrolabe Reef on October 5, 2011.

Containers have been thrown around in some of the holds on the bow section. Photo: MNZ

Container recovery company Braemar Howells operations manager Neil Lloyd says the calm weather is also allowing good progress with shoreline debris recovery.

A total of two tonnes of debris, mostly small pieces of timber was removed from Matakana Island on Tuesday.

Recovery efforts on Bay of Plenty shorelines are now focussing on the recovery of plastic beads.

Salvors are working to remove aluminium ingots by cutting the tops off containers. Photo: MNZ

Teams stationed on Matakana Island in the Bay of Plenty and at Matapaua Bay, north of Tairua, in the Coromandel are this week vacuuming beaches for beads.

Meanwhile, the Braemar-Unimar team is continuing sonar operations this week, with identified seabed targets being investigated to ascertain whether containers are present.

Unimar is a Nelson-based specialist marine support company.