This Harley Davidson, which washed all the way to Canada, has been found almost entirely intact – over a year since the tsunami of March 2011.
Beachcombers found the well-travelled motorbike inside a trailer, which explains why it hasn’t totally broken up, on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii Islands and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has photographed the machine and, along with the Japanese Consulate in Vancouver, is investigating where it might have come from.
Registered to Miyagi Prefecture, the number plate may give a clue, but the only thing that is certain is that it is a long way from home. NHK and the BBC are reporting that the owner may be Ikio Yokoyama, who survived the disaster but lost three members of his family. Unlike the football which was returned to its owner by an Alaskan family who found it in March, this rusty bike could be destined for the scrap heap.
An estimated five million tons of debris was thought to have been washed to sea by the tsunami. Originally, it was thought that it would take longer for the currents (the The Kuroshio current flows almost directly from Japan to Canada) to wash them ashore across the Pacific, but, taking into account winds, floating items – or Harleys given buoyancy by their trailers, it seems – travel quicker.
