Fernandina Island EcuadorCruise Port Guide

Fernandina Island, formerly known by its English name Narborough Island, is the westernmost island in the Galápagos Archipelago and, at approximately 700,000 years old, the youngest major island in the chain. Covering around 642 square kilometers with a summit elevation of 1,476 meters, Fernandina is dominated by the La Cumbre shield volcano whose summit caldera spans approximately 6.5 kilometers across. The volcano remains one of the most active in the world, with significant eruptions recorded in 1988, 1995, 2005, 2009, 2018, and 2020, regularly depositing fresh lava flows that cascade to the shoreline and extend the island's coastline. Streams of hardened lava — both the ropy, smooth pahoehoe variety and the jagged, blocky aa lava — create a stark, primordial landscape that looks as though it has just cooled from the Earth's interior, because in many places it has.

Fernandina holds a distinction that no other populated island in the Galápagos can claim: no invasive species have ever successfully established themselves here. No rats, no cats, no goats, no pigs — none of the destructive introduced animals that have devastated wildlife on other Galápagos islands have gained a foothold on Fernandina. This pristine status, combined with the island's active volcanism, makes Fernandina the most ecologically intact and scientifically significant island in the archipelago, offering a rare glimpse of what the Galápagos looked like before human contact. The Galápagos National Park maintains strict controls on access to preserve this exceptional purity.

Fernandina's location at the confluence of the Cromwell Upwelling and the Humboldt Current creates extraordinarily rich, cold, nutrient-dense waters that support the island's legendary concentrations of marine wildlife. The Punta Espinosa visitor site on the island's northeastern tip hosts the world's largest aggregation of marine iguanas — hundreds to thousands of the dark, salt-encrusted lizards pile together in dense masses on the black lava to thermoregulate, then launch themselves into the frigid water to graze on submarine algae beds. Watching a marine iguana dive and graze underwater, propelling itself with lateral undulations of its flattened tail, is one of the most extraordinary natural history experiences in the Galápagos.