About a week ago, a soccer ball that belonged to a 16-year-old survivor of the Japanese tsunami was returned to him, after it was discovered on the Alaskan coast. But a beachcomber in Canada has since stumbled across an even more fantastic find: a Harley Davidson, with all its parts still in place.
Peter Mark was riding his ATV on a beach on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii Islands when he spotted a large, battered, white detached trailer. The door was ripped off, and Mark peered inside and spotted a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
Covered in rust, the bike was still intact and still carried a licence plate registered in Miyagi prefecture, the part of Japan hit hardest by the giant storm last March. More than 11,000 people in this region were reported missing or dead after the disaster. Inside the trailer were also some golf clubs, camping equipment and tools. Mark has no idea who the owner is, let alone if he or she survived. But the Japanese consulate in Vancouver is trying to find the person using the licence plate number.
Though it’s crazy that the container still held all those items, it’s not entirely surprising. The Kuroshio current follows a pretty direct path from the east coast of Japan to these Canadian Islands. The motorcycle is probably not the last prize left to be discovered; there was an estimated five million tons of debris washed into the ocean as a result of the tsunami, much of it still heading North America’s way.
www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/05/harley-davidson-lost-in-japan-tsunami-washes-up-in-canada-fully-intact/
JAPANESE man Ikuo Yokoyama lost all of the things that mattered most in the tsunami that hit the island in March last year.
The giant wave claimed three members of his family and his house on March 11, 2011.
Of less importance was the loss of a storage container he was using as a garage, which was simply picked up and swept away in one piece.
Until yesterday, when Mr Yokoyama learned his "garage" had been found 6500km away washed up on a remote island off the coast of Canada.
In it was the Harley-Davidson motorbike Mr Yokoyama had bought five years ago.
He told Japanese television station some of his fondest memories were of of tours around Japan on it.
“I’m very thankful that it came back,” he told local broadcaster NHK in Japanese.
“I would like to thank the man who found my bike in person, but because it’s hard to do that, I’d like to thank him here right now.”
The man he wanted to thank was Peter Mark, who came across the container on Graham Island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago on April 18.
It had completed the journey intact due to being lined with Styrofoam.
NHK rang Mr Mark yesterday to tell him they had tracked down the Harley's owner, and he was still alive.
“I’m pretty happy. I’ve been worried the whole time that something bad had happened to him," he told the National Post.
"It’s a major relief knowing he is okay,” he said.
More good news for Mr Yokohama - the person who tracked him down after seeing news items about the bike being washed up was a Harley-Davidson rep in Japan.
The company told CBC it was going to try to pay for the bike's return to Mr Yokoyama and hopefully fix it up for him.
Saw this on the late news. Awesome it has or will be returned to the owner.
The shop that sold the motorcycle to Mr Yokoyama is now hoping to ship the Harley-Davidson back to Japan and restore it.
I see that HD (or that HD dealer in Japan) has confirmed it is paying to freight it back and repair it. The owner lost three family members in the tsunami so it's one bit of good news for him.
