Courtesy of Robert Koehler comes news that supposedly the first foreigners ever have visited Dokdo:

Some 24 forth and fifth generation Mexican-Koreans stepped foot on Dokdo yesterday, supposedly the first foreigners to do so.

I’m not even sure if that’s true — I seem to recall exchange students and foreign journalists going, too. But I’m way too lazy to check.

Anyway, the Mexican-Koreans were descendants of 1031 Koreans who arrived in Merida, Mexico on May 15, 1905 as contract workers to toil on the region’s henequen plantations. In 1921, about 300 of them moved on to Cuba in search of a better life. The blog From Stranger to Kin has more about the Henequen Koreans here.  [Marmot's Hole]

Robert’s suspicions were right, these are not the first foreigners to visit Dokdo.  In fact other foreigners such as this German journalist have visited Dokdo to write stories about the controversy:

Nicole Bastian, one of the Tokyo-based foreign journalists who visited the island Dokdo on July 24 despite protests from the Japanese government, recently published a feature for her German the Handelsblatt about the Korean couple residing there.  [Korea.net]

Heck earlier this year the Korean government sponsored an entire entourage of reporters to visit the islets:

Once seen as a silly dispute over a few pieces of rock, from an overseas perspectives, these days even the world’s press is taking a peek into the rocky site that Korea is so fiercely defending.

In a recent trip by foreign correspondents to Dokdo sponsored by the Korean government, much emphasis was given to local sentiment toward the island that goes beyond mere questions of territory or resources.  [International Herald Tribune]

Heck even a K-blogger has set foot on Dokdo, Ex-pat Jane and she has pictures to prove it:

The big issue with both the South Korean media and public is the simmering dispute over the Dokdo/Daekishima islet which is in the East Sea (or Sea of Japan). I got the honor of an invite to visit ??, Dokdo, and protest with the locals on the South Korean March 1st holiday. That dispute is minor and unknown to most because while most South Koreans are aware of it, only the Japanese in the affected province and Japanese politicians and diplomats in Japan know about it.

So it is pretty obvious there have been plenty of foreigners who have stepped foot Dokdo.  I have visited Dokdo myself by boat, but I would take the opportunity to walk around the islet like many of these other foreigners got to do if I had the chance. However, it appears for a foreigner to step foot on Dokdo you have to be a photo prop which of course something I wouldn’t want to do even though I consider Dokdo to be Korean territory.