The drive to Hoopers Island is not a great time to carry on a cell-phone conversation or reach in the back seat to rescue a fallen toy or needed map. This is a trip that requires the eyes on the road and the hands on the wheel.

Veer too far off the road in either direction, and you will be in marsh. Or, if you're really unlucky, your car will make contact with the Honga River, and not in a good way. For this small chain of three islands is about as remote as remote gets. It shows you on the map, plain as day, but you have to see it to believe it-- the main road over the causeway looks as thin as a ribbon, water on either side, and sometimes even in the roadway. It leads to three remote islands, known as Fishing Creek, Hoopersville and Applegarth.

I thought Hoopers Island would be more like Tylerton, on Smith Island -- a small remote fishing village of a couple dozen houses. It's much bigger than that, or so it seemed to me. But, like Smith, this is a place where most of the folks still make their living on the water. Maryland's small crab houses are here, and many driveways hold delivery trucks boasting names like "Ruark" and "Rippons" -- names that are known on Hooper's and have been for decades.

Phillips seafood got its start here, too, before it became a popular Harborplace dining spot and processed much of its crab meat in Thailand.

As far as I know, there aren't any hotels on the island. But you can stay in Cambridge, about 30 miles away.

A small store, Island Pride, caters to basic needs. And Old Salty's restaurant is known for both great seafood and terrific pies.

Attractions: there is a lighthouse, the Hooper Island light. An old graveyard. And check out these photos from Rearview Mirror's blog.

But the real reason to take a trip to Hooper's Island is to see a community living on the edge, at the mercy of the bay, the winds and the tides. These are people who were cut off from the rest of the world during Tropical Storm Isabel; it wiped out their causeway and stranded people in Hoopersville and beyond. Talk of global warming and climate change and sea-level rise is much more than just talk to people who live on a spit of land sandwiched between bay and river. It means the difference between surviving and not surviving.

If you go, enjoy the view. Just make sure you put that phone down. Really, what could be that important?