When Jerome Golfman told his wife, Diane, that he was thinking of buying a small island, she envisioned swaying palm trees, hot sand and mild ocean breezes.

Alas, the island her husband has in mind is not in the tropics but in central Virginia. Goochland County, to be exact.

Jerome Golfman has his eye on a sliver of land in the middle of the James River, only a few miles upstream from their Richmond home. No palms, just paddling out in a canoe and camping on hard rock, at least on weekends when the river doesn't rise and swallow up the tiny islands peeking up from the waters.

"I was thinking of somewhere more southerly, like off the coast of Florida or Georgia, or even South Carolina," said a chastened Diane Golfman before she and her husband boarded a helicopter to survey more than three dozen James River islands about to go on the auction block. "I'm truly just along for the ride."

In one of the more unusual auctions ever held in Virginia, 38 islands owned by Richmond businessman George Sydnor were to go to the highest bidders beginning last night.

"It's not something you sell every day, like a house or a car or a NASCAR racetrack," said Tim Dudley, a vice president with Motley's Auction and Realty of Richmond, which is handling the sale. "There's a lot of interest from campers, fishermen and hunters — outdoors types who want to get in the river and stake a claim to a small island of their own."

For many of the potential buyers, the auction is an opportunity to get away from it all.

Tommy Tucker of Richmond floated down the James River in a kayak as a boy and envisions taking his friends out to his very own island to bask in the solitude.

"If you look around, you could be in Tanzania," he said. "You don't even know you're near civilization."

Sydnor, a retired salesman of manufacturing equipment, acquired his islands one by one after he made an unusual discovery: Nobody owned them. All he had to do was start paying taxes on them, and they were his.

"I recognized in studying the tax maps of the county that the smaller islands did not appear on the tax maps," he said. "So I had them surveyed and put on the tax maps. It was doing the county a favor.

"Most people are under the impression that islands in a river are in the public domain and belong to the state. It's a misconception."

Most of Sydnor's properties are more islet than island. Only six of the 38 cover one acre or more. The largest is five acres. Several are only one one-hundredth of an acre — about the size of a master-bedroom suite. And that is at low tide.

All the islands have vegetation, mostly river birch, willows and some sycamore. The native wildlife includes wood ducks, geese, black bear, coyote, fox, deer, bobcats and wild turkey.

They flood periodically, so nothing permanent can be built on them. All the islands are good for, short of bragging rights, is fishing, the occasional camping trip and, of course, solitude.

Prospective bidder Thomas Harlow, a Richmond dentist, wants an island where he can tie up his boat and wade into the water to fish for small-mouth bass, blue gill, catfish and carp.

Stuart Johnson, a high-school history teacher and restorer of antique speedboats, owns land nearby where he plans to build a house someday, and he wants to keep anyone else from getting the islands near his property.

"If the price is right, maybe I'll get more than one or two," he said.

Then there are the romantics.

John Rothert of Powhatan is a self-described river rat who co-founded the annual James River Batteau Festival, which celebrates the history of the flat-bottomed boats used to transport tobacco in the 1700s. He says he thinks it would be unique to own an island.

Jerome Golfman has no shortage of useful ideas for an island, no matter how small. He could name one after his daughter. He could escort his two sons and their Eagle Scout troops on overnight camping trips. He suggested to his wife that she could use it as a driving range to practice her golf shots.

But a big part of it is the sheer novelty, he allows.

"Just the thought of having something like that appeals to me," he said after picking out a potential islet or two from the helicopter.

"I like history, and the James River has an incredible history. It's like buying a piece of history."