Skydiving was incredible, especially jumping over the Palm. I was nervous, but really excited at the same time. I gotta say I've been more scared to cliff jump than skydive. There was something surreal and disconnecting about being so high up. It almost didn't seem real and was tough to contemplate would could happen.
The training took about 5-10 minutes and basically consisted of me being told to just keep out of the way of the guy I was attached to. We loaded into the plane and I was lucky enough to be the first jumper. When my time came we got up to the edge, looked out and tumbled forward. The first few seconds were crazy as everything was spinning and my stomach was in my throat. After a bit of free-fall I got used to it and it just felt like I was flying. When the parachute was pulled about a minute into the fall, everything slowed down and I really had a chance to see Dubai including the other man-made islands and the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world currently. Landing went pretty smoothly and I had a grin for the next few hours. I can't wait to go again.
The other part of the birthday present was surfing in the Wadi Adventure wave pool in Al Ain (one of the other emirates). It was a 2 hour drive and about 400 roundabouts from our hotel. Upon arriving at 8pm, I found I was one of only 2 surfers using the pool so I extended my time from 1 to 2 hours. It was well worth it. The pool created a legit breaking right every 90 seconds like clockwork. By the time I could paddle back out, a new wave would be getting ready to launch. It was nice having somebody else out there to take a wave and force me to relax. I was so excited I was trying to drop in on every wave and wearing myself out quickly.
The setting was pretty crazy. We were in the middle of the desert, backed up against some rocks. The pool would suck in a bunch of water and build a wave. When it was ready, some water cannons would shoot, you would hear a gate drop and out of the back left corner a surge of water would come forth. It would then bounce of the wall where we were waiting and then ricochet the other way creating a 1-2m tall wave. Unfortunately the middle pump was messed up so the wave got mushy in the middle, but the drop was still awesome.
All-in-all it was a great trip and I can't wait to go back for some more surfing and jumping.