Jeanne Beaver says beachcombing has become bittersweet since last year’s Japanese tsunami sent debris washing up on B.C.’s shores.
“We like to beachcomb, walk around and get our exercise,” says the resident of Borrowman Bay on northwestern Aristazabal Island on B.C.’s north coast.
“It’s exciting to find these things, but the reason they’re here is because of a disaster and tragedy. It takes away from the fun, if you know what I mean.”
That’s why Beaver and her husband, Richard, who salvaged the first tsunami-related vessel to arrive on the B.C. coast, were overjoyed to learn the owner survived the disaster.
“Thank goodness he was not harmed in Japan,” she said in an interview this week. “We were so delighted to hear the owner of the boat was alive and well.”
The Beavers, who have a home in Kitwanga in west-central B.C., are retirees who’ve been living the good life in their 12-metre sailboat and floating home in Borrowman Bay for the past eight years. They make a two-day trip to Kitimat about every six months to get gasoline and groceries.
Beachcombing is a part of their coastal routine, especially now that tsunami debris is arriving ashore.
Earlier in the year, lots of large barrel-shaped Styrofoam arrived, along with fishing floats.
Then came a door that they used in the greenhouse of their floating home.
“We recycle just about everything we get our hands on,” she said.
And then the boat, which washed ashore upside down on the south side of Thomson Island, near their floating home.
“We saw something that looked odd on the beach, and lo and behold,” Jeanne Beaver said.
That occurred June 26, but word is just getting out now from the remote location.
“We’re up here in the toolies,” she said.
A federal fisheries officer arrived a few days after the boat was found to inspect it, take pictures, and confirm that the attached shellfish were gooseneck barnacles and not an invasive species.
Transport Canada then contacted the couple to inform them of the formal process to salvage the vessel and took steps to have the boat’s owner tracked down through a number on the vessel.
That’s how they knew the owner survived the tsunami.
“We have received confirmation from the Japanese embassy that the owner has no interest in the vessel,” confirmed Sau Sau Liu, spokeswoman for Transport Canada in Vancouver. “At this time, we are working to process the salvor’s claim.”
Beaver, who used to work in a medical clinic, described the 6.5-metre boat as a Panga-style craft used for fishing. There was no motor attached to it.
Part of the upper bow is damaged but the boat still floats and is in otherwise good condition.
Once the salvage process is complete, the Beavers plan to have it repaired and use it themselves.
“We feel it’s a part of history,” she said. “We really want to pay honour to the boat, fix it up to what it was.”
A magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, killing 15,850. Another 3,287 people are still missing. The most powerful quake ever recorded in the country also damaged the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
In March of this year, the Japanese fishing vessel Ryou-Un Maru was spotted off Haida Gwaii. It later drifted into U.S. waters and was sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard in April in the Gulf of Alaska southwest of Sitka.
The Vancouver Sun