Of course the trait was advantageous either in terms of natural selection, or more likely sexual selection. All the blue eyed people on earth can be traced back to a single ancestor living in the black sea region about 10,000 years ago. It is a recessive trait, but allele frequencies don't magically increase just because a trait is recessive. Without selection pressure, the ratio of blue eyed people would not have kept increasing after the emergence of the mutation.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-one-ancestor-h...