CEDAR ISLAND As the bitter wind scattered sand and shorebirds under a scary sky, veteran waterman Rick Kellam surveyed the ominous scene and described it in one perfect word.

"Fantastic!" he hollered over the howl of the wind.

Even the harshest of days on the Eastern Shore's barrier islands are sweet in the eyes of those who truly love these uninhabited slivers of land along the Atlantic coast.

The Eastern Shore, a watery wedge of land lying between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, remains something of a mystery to many Virginians, and the barrier islands are even more unknown. Unlike the Outer Banks, the heavily developed barrier islands of North Carolina, the coastal islands of the Eastern Shore are undeveloped and unspoiled. It is said, Kellam noted, the islands probably look a lot like they did "15 minutes after God created them."

"One of the last great places on Earth left in its natural form and not screwed up by man," he said. "Yet."

The 23 seaside barrier islands and the surrounding salt marshes, tidal mudflats and shallow bays that extend more than 60 miles along the Shore represent the "longest expanse of coastal wilderness remaining on the Eastern Seaboard," according to The Nature Conservancy, which owns 14 of the islands.

Other islands are owned by the federal and state governments, as well as private citizens. Environmental regulations prohibit development and usage that would damage the fragile wildlife habitats.

The barrier islands are considered among the most important migratory bird stopover and nesting sites on Earth, said Steve Parker, director of The Nature Conservancy's Virginia Coast Reserve.

"We put a lot of attention to minimizing human disturbance," Parker said. "They're out there living with nature as nature intended with the cooperation and collaboration of The Nature Conservancy, the government and local people."

The islands weren't always uninhabited by people. Hog Island boasted a vibrant community of watermen and their families, and Hog and other islands were favored retreats of the rich and famous. Hotels and lodges welcomed the well-heeled and politically connected who came to hunt and fish in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

"That was a grand period," said Jerry Doughty, historian at the Barrier Islands Center, a museum in Machipongo.

But storms during the Great Depression eventually drove away the residents and resorts, and the way things are now -- no people living on the islands -- is the way it's supposed to be, Doughty said.

"People do not need to be living on them," said Doughty, a former history teacher whose family lived on Hog Island as far back as the 1700s. The islands "protect the mainland. They take the brunt of the fury of storms. They help with the wildlife and so forth. They are being returned to their natural state, which I thoroughly agree with."

The islands aren't the easiest places to get to.

The southern tip of the Eastern Shore is a little more than a two-hour drive from Richmond, including a 17-mile trip across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Once there, getting to the islands requires a watercraft, a good map and a working knowledge of tides and channel markers -- or the phone number of someone, such as Kellam, who runs one of a number of local eco-tour companies.

If you elect to go on your own, though, be careful.

"I've seen people tear outboard motors right off the sterns of their boats or people tear sterns out of the back of their boats because they've struck sandbars or oyster rocks or submerged objects," said Kellam, who operates Broadwater Bay Ecotours (www.broadwaterbayecotour.com) and steered us through 2 miles of salt marshes to Cedar Island on his 24-foot skiff.

"They don't understand how to navigate out there. Places you can navigate on a high tide, you can walk on a low tide and never get your feet wet."

Before our trip, we met Kellam for lunch at Stella's Waterfront Restaurant in Willis Wharf, a small seaside village that was once a thriving port where sailing ships came to unload spices and silk and take on produce and seafood. Over hot clam-fritter sandwiches made with homemade bread in what used to be a general store, Kellam said you also have to know when to visit the islands.

The summer months are generally hot, humid and buggy. The pesky greenhead flies are particularly unpleasant at that time of year, Kellam said. Best times to go? Kellam says fall, followed closely by spring. Besides cooler weather and fewer insects, those are the best times to see migrating birds.

Birding is a great reason to visit the islands, in addition to swimming and finding shells; conchlike whelks were in particular abundance during our visit to Cedar Island. Some visitors like learning about the rich history of the islands -- native guides such as Kellam have a bottomless well of stories -- while others simply enjoy walking on the beaches and soaking in the surroundings.

No matter when you go, whether a hurricane's approaching or the skies are clear and the winds calm, chances are you won't see many people.

"Most of the time when I carry my groups, you very rarely see another human being," Kellam said.

The rugged conditions on the day we went served an unmistakable reminder why people no longer live on the islands as they once did. The marsh grasses, turning their winter wheat color, were bent sideways by the wind, as the ocean surf pounded the island shore. Kellam's ancestors resided down the coast on Hog Island -- a self-sustaining community that had no electricity -- until 1933, when a hurricane drove many of its residents to the Shore itself.

Another storm in 1936 convinced the stragglers. Some of the structures that weren't damaged beyond repair were picked up and moved to the Shore on barges. Foundations, sidewalks and even parts of the island road remain, like skeletons from an ancient age.

Much of the Eastern Shore has the feel of a bygone era. Despite a few new gated communities, golf courses and marinas, the shore remains mostly farmland, dotted with small towns. According to the 2000 census, the Shore's two Virginia counties -- Accomack and Northampton -- have a population of just more than 50,000.

"You hear a lot of people say, 'The Eastern Shore of Virginia is like going back in time 50 years,'" Kellam said. "My answer to this is, 'And we love every minute of it.'

"The real estate agents have found us. We're being developed. Things are changing. But the rest of the world is already there. We're not backwoods, but we're just far enough back . . . that we can learn from their mistakes."

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or wlohmann@timesdispatch.com.

Contact Bob Brown at (804) 649-6382 or bbrown@timesdispatch.com.