DUBAI, United Arab Emirates | Four years ago there was nothing here but unbroken sea. Now there's Andrew Dukes and his luxury mansion -- sitting on a palm-shaped, manmade island -- the first of about 100 houses to open here.

"I got exactly what I paid for and I'm very happy with it," said Dukes, 43, a tanned Englishman who just moved into his colossal home on Palm Jumeirah, Dubai's greatest-yet construction project.

When finished, Palm Jumeirah will number about 120,000 residents and workers spending their days on an island made of rock blasted from nearby mountains and sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

Each of the 100 mansions sits on a half-mile long palm frond, packed in among dozens or sometimes hundreds of others. Sharing close quarters with his neighbors doesn't bother Dukes, formerly an executive with a London-based Internet company.

"Living in London you're absolutely on top of each other. So if you're English-European coming here, you think the plot size is more than adequate," he said.

Dukes paid around $1.36 million for his house just over a year ago. It is now worth almost twice that. He spends his days discovering uses for the large expanse of water that starts a few yards from his back door.

"I've been kayaking ... and I'm going to do windsurfing next," he said.

The first of Dubai's many ongoing mega-projects has literally changed the shape of the United Arab Emirates, re-contouring its coast with a new island mass that has altered sea currents and marred the once unbroken sea view from Dubai's natural beach.

The entire coastal development, led by Dubai government-owned Nakheel, includes three massive palm-shaped islands along with a cluster of 300 islets built in the shape of a world map. All are built mostly of bright sand dredged up from the seabed.

Buyers are a mix of speculators, long-term residents and people wanting a vacation home, developers said.

Not all the residents of the Palm Jumeirah are mega-rich. One section serves as a labor camp for the thousands of construction workers who toil in the baking sun. They will gradually be moved out as the project nears completion in the next three to four years.