Ikuo Yokoyama To Be Reunited With His Wayward Tsunami Tossed Harley Davidson

If your bike gets stolen in Clarksville, Tennessee, you’re not likely to ever see it again in one piece.

If, on the other hand, it gets transported across thousands of miles of open ocean and dumped unceremoniously on a remote stretch of beach in British Columbia, you might just ride it again.

The Japanese owner of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle lost at sea in the tsunami of March 2011, Ikuo Yokoyama, a 29-year-old resident of the town of Yamamoto, in Miyagi Prefecture, says the fact that it was found is a most welcome miracle.

Yokoyama got more good news yesterday as a representative of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company in Japan saw the story and offered to pay for the return and restoration of the well-traveled machine.

It was the just about the first good news Yokoyama has gotten in awhile. He lost his home and three members of his family to the horrific wave which devastated his home town. He now lives in temporary housing until he can begin to recover his footing after the tragedy.

So how did his bike end up in British Columbia? He said the bike was stored in a van when the tsunami rolled over his home. At the time, the loss of the motorcycle way well have been the least of his worries, but he now says, after he bought the bike five years ago, he is comforted by memories of his tours around Japan on his machine.

“Thanks for coming back buddy,” Yokoyama told an interviewer when he was notified of the discovery.

It seems the bike floated more than 3,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean only to be discovered by Peter Mark. Authorities then began the search for the owner by taking the information from motorcycle’s license plate.

It’s worth noting that Yokoyama wasn’t nearly as thrilled to find out Mark also recovered the Japanese man’s golf clubs.