The M/V Pride was not due to back to the Port of Newcastle for another week but heavy seas forced the vessel's crew to make a brief return over the weekend.

After spending a week about 25 kilometres offshore raising containers lost from the YM Efficiency, the vessel docked in the port's west basin at Carrington early on Sunday morning.

The first batch of containers were unloaded and transferred to a nearby parcel of land dedicated for sorting through the recovered cargo.

Workers of AVCON Projects, which the Australian Maritime Safety Authority contracted to manage onshore waste activities, will be among the first to lay eyes on the assortment of goods which have been submerged underwater for more than 22 months when they begin opening the containers on Monday.

AMSA confirmed throughout last week that containers loaded with furniture, tyres and paper products had been recovered.

Late last week Ardent Oceania, the contractor conducting the offshore recovery operation, also discovered an additional two containers that were previously deemed to be missing.

During some pre-lift surveillance, the two containers were identified at a site that was previously considered to contain two containers joined together.

But with better cameras aboard the M/V Pride's remotely operated underwater vehicle, it was revealed there were actually four containers at the site.

The additions took the number of shipping containers being salvaged during the operation to 62 and reduced the number of missing containers to only 14.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority told the Newcastle Herald federal customs officials would not be present during the opening of recovered containers but would attend if the contents did not match what was labelled on the manifest.

Recovered products will be sorted for either salvaging, recycling of disposal.

The M/V Pride was expected to depart the port on Sunday evening to resume the recovery operation.

AMSA has funded the $15 million project but is pursuing the YM Efficiency's Taiwanese owner Yang Ming for costs.

The ill-fated ship lost 81 shipping containers off the Hunter coast in heavy seas on June 1, 2018.