text: NSW Maritime will conduct aerial surveying to relocate two shipping containers spotted in waters off the coast of Narooma and Tathra yesterday.
  The containers are believed to have fallen from the Singapore-registered vessel APL England after it hit rough seas south-east of Sydney last month.
  The containers are likely two of more than 50 that toppled off the vessel, which was en route to Melbourne from China.
  NSW Maritime’s manager of marine pollution and emergency response, Shayne Wilde, said the shipping container floating off the coast of Narooma near Glasshouse Rocks was first spotted on Monday morning.
  "[It was] probably a chance sighting," he said.
  "It took crews another 45 minutes of looking but they couldn’t find it again — they are extremely difficult to track," he said.
  "We expect that it may come ashore over the next 24 hours."
  Debris from containers
  NSW Maritime said the white-coloured container is one of 26 empty "refrigeration containers" that fell overboard.
  The second container, painted yellow and believed to be full of cargo, was spotted floating just below the surface about 10 kilometres off the coast of Tathra on Monday afternoon.
  NSW Maritime said debris from the containers, including air conditioner ducting, face masks, bags of breadcrumbs and insulation material from the containers themselves have washed ashore at locations between Wollongong and Newcastle over the past few weeks.
  Today NSW Maritime will use aircraft to survey Far South Coast waters in an attempt to relocate the containers and bring them ashore.
  "Once they are spotted, we can then assess what options there are to recover those," Mr Wilde said.
  "The one off Wollongong we collected about a week ago — that was taken in tow by a tug and brought ashore."
  Boaters and mariners are being told to exercise caution when navigating because the containers are difficult to see.
  "If you hit one of those, depending on the size of your vessel, it could do quite a lot of damage," Mr Wilde said.
  As of May 30, some 15 containers have been accounted for.