I’M TRYING IN VAIN TO FOCUS ON THE HORIZON as the ship wallows in the swells while my stomach churns in sync with it and a press of South Korean tourists elbows me. After a long journey across the Korean peninsula and five hours in a boat that bobs along rather than surges ahead, we’ve just learned that we won’t be going ashore.

We can see the islands that everyone around us knows as Dok-do, but Japan calls Takeshima. The disputed rocks are just a few hundred yards off the port side, but waves are washing over the concrete causeway where we were scheduled to tie up. The captain says the risk to his vessel is too great. Mission aborted.

It wasn’t meant to be like this.

Four years ago I was one of several FCCJ journalists who were fortunate enough to get ashore for a few hours. We interviewed the fisherman and his wife who live on the main island and the officer in charge of the police detachment permanently stationed here.

Little did we realize just how tricky that operation was, or in how many ways. That 2006 trip aroused the ire of the Japanese government, and the 20-odd FCCJ members who went received stern letters of rebuke from the Foreign Ministry for their troubles.

It was definitely worth it, though. I sold that story a couple of times over, and attracted some attention to the issue.

This year, with the subject jutting up again in bilateral relations, a couple of colleagues and I thought it was worth a return visit, combined with a number of other stories in and around Seoul.

The Guardian’s Justin McCurry, photographer Rob Gilhooly and I once again benefited from the South Korean government’s help. They’d even promised us a helicopter ride out to Dok-do from the mainland to dramatically reduce our traveling time. Despite clear skies on the mainland, however, the haze at sea had cut visibility around the islands, so we were obliged to fall back on Plan B — taking the ferry with a couple of hundred tourists.

After a stop at nearby Ulleungdo Island, the journey ended with the steep-sided islands emerging out of the haze and the captain’s announcement that landing was out of the question. We had to be content with a genteel cruise just offshore — with tourist cameras snapping and video cameras rolling — before being locked away again inside the ferry for the return trip.

Our South Korean guides, from the government-supported Northeast Asian History Foundation, were deeply apologetic. They urged us to come back again, indicating that May is the best time for getting ashore. I have the feeling, though, that revisiting a story that has already served you well is like trying to rekindle an old relationship—it’s never as good the second time around.

– By Julian Ryall, off … [whatever you want to call that island]

Julian Ryall is Japan correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. Rob Gilhooly is a photographer
and writer whose work has been published worldwide (see: www.japanphotojournalist.com).