What are the odds of finding a motorcycle that was washed away during the horrific tsunami that hit Japan’s northeast coasts on March 2011? Near impossible, you say? You are probably right, yet that “one in a million” chance happened to a Japanese man who lost his Harley-Davidson motorcycle more than a year ago.
The bike turned up in a makeshift container some 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) across the Pacific Ocean on a Canadian beach!
On April 18, 2012, Peter Mark from Canada was riding his ATV, exploring an isolated beach in British Columbia’s Graham Island when he came across an open white trailer that had washed out from sea
Upon closer inspection, Mark saw a rusted motorcycle with Japanese license plates along with a few more objects such as golf clubs, tools and camping equipment lying around in the container.
“The door was ripped off it and I could see a motorcycle tire sticking out,” he told CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Cooperation). “So I went closer and looked inside and saw a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. It defies all logic. I cannot for the life of me figure out how that stuff stayed in there. The motorcycle was not strapped down. Everything was just laying loose on the bottom of the floor.”
At the time, nobody knew who the owner of the motorcycle was, but after the news made headlines on both sides of the Pacific, a Harley-Davidson representative in Japan set out to find whom it belonged to.
The owner turned out to be Ikuo Yokoyama, a 29-year-old resident of the town of Yamamoto, in Miyagi Prefecture, who needless to say, was left speechless from the news.
“I’m very thankful that it came back,” he told local news station NHK, according to The Montreal Gazette. “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.”
Yokoyama said that he lost his home and three family members in the tsunami and that he is currently living in temporary accommodation. He added that the Harley Davidson was stored at the back of a ‘cube’ van behind his house when the tsunami hit last March.
Japanese news reporters also asked Yokoyama if he wanted to say something to his Harley. He laughed and said “Thanks for coming back buddy”.
A miraculous story indeed.