A guide to Fernando de Noronha, Brazil’s paradise island

In September last year, I spent five incredible days on Fernando de Noronha, an archipelago nearly 300 miles off the north-eastern coast of Brazil. It’s home to TripAdvisor’s “most beautiful beach in the world”, pod after pod of (frisky) spinner dolphins, and some of the best snorkelling I’ve ever experienced.

My boyfriend and I found it quite hard to navigate the island as two classic Brits abroad with no phone signal and a shocking grasp on basic Portuguese. We were befriended by a kind Brazilian couple who took pity on us as we plodded from the airport to our first pousada (homestay), and they helped us get past our language limitations. Without their local insight and good-natured translations, there’s no way we could have made the most of this trip.

The arrival: expect some extra costs

Gov. Carlos Wilson Airport, Fernando de Noronha

You can only reach the island by plane - and there are no direct flights from Rio or Sao Paolo. When you descend into Noronha’s atmospheric airport, you have to pay an environment tax - about £12 for each day of your stay. That doesn’t give you access to the whole island, so if you want to enjoy the place to its fullest, head to the information centre (ICMBio) in the middle of town. It’s a 15 minute walk from the airport or a five minute taxi. Here, you can buy the optional tourist pass, which was approximately £90 each and is valid for ten days. Don’t lose this card - you need it to scan in and out of the most popular destinations (more on that later).

Noronha is big on sustainable tourism and there are strict limitations on the number of visitors (around 400 a day) to prevent overcrowding. Certain activities, like challenging hikes and super-popular day trips are ticketed. You should buy these (£15 per person) at ICMBio at the earliest opportunity.

The system at ICMBio isn’t self-explanatory, and this is where our friends really helped us. You can only book certain tours and trips at 5pm each evening, like the Capim Acu hiking trail or the Atalaia rockpools, so aim to head into the town centre for this time. When you get there, pick up a numbered ticket, but this quickly becomes redundant when hundreds of people swarm to book trips in a room with three computers. The chaos is worth it, I promise. Fernando de Noronha is Brazil’s paradise island.

Beaches and baios: where’s best?

Sancho: the fairest of them all

Baio do Sancho was awarded TripAdvisor’s top beachy accolade for its beauty in 2019 - and you can see why.⁣

Word of warning: it may be outrageously gorgeous but it’s the least accessible beach on the island. You have to climb down two tight ladder-lined caves to get here so it’s not for the faint-hearted (or anyone who feels claustrophobic). But what a place. It’s definitely worth the lizard-infested scale - and the lizards (mabuya) are quite cute anyway.⁣

There are strict regulations on when you can go up and down to avoid any ladder congestion or clangers. Make sure you check the board in the town centre and plan ahead. ⁣

The timetable for Sancho in September 2019

The beach empties out around midday - tours tend to go in the morning when the light’s overhead and the sea’s glistening - so we spent a day here with the place essentially to ourselves.

We swam with turtles and stingrays in the crystalline sea and baked in the scorching sun. There’s no shade and definitely nowhere to get water so make sure you bring plentiful supplies (and suntan lotion)!⁣

Baio dos Porcos: two brothers, dolphins and sunset swimming⁣

These rocks are called the Two Brothers. Humpback whales come close to them in the spring migration season - usually mothers and their babies - and between 5 and 7am this little part of the Atlantic thrashes with dolphin pods. ⁣⁣

Someone has the enviable job of counting the dolphins’ movement and they loan binoculars to interested visitors. We asked one attendant how they keep track. They said they visualise a finish line, as if it’s at the end of a marathon, and count the dolphins that reach that point. Numbers often reach the thousands.

But enough about the dolphins - more about ‘Pig Beach’ that’s just about visible in the bottom right hand corner of the picture above.

Porcos is excellent for sundown as it catches the late-afternoon rays. You have to enter via Cacimba do Padre beach, which is full of beach bars (and lethal caipirinhas) then, low tide conditions permitting, hike along the sea and sand and up some black rock formations. I struggled in my flip flops so it’s worth bringing sturdier shoes.

The cove is so tranquil and the rocky outlays are perfect for diving into the warm Atlantic water. They’re also teeming with little crabs that are utterly unfazed by humans.

Sueste: for snorkelling with sharks, turtles and lobsters

If you’re interested in swimming with turtles, you must come here. This beach was by far the most policed - and people aren’t able to veer to the right hand side without a guide accompanying them.

The £10 cost for an hour of the guide’s time was well worth it. This beach is particularly prone to choppy seas so he was able to guide us to clusters of turtles. At one point, held my head underneath an aggressive wave so I could see a lobster tentatively peek its head out of its corally hiding place.

You’re unable to get into the sea past 4pm here as that’s prime hunting time for sharks. Unfortunately, a man died a few years ago from a tiger shark attack, but the early sea curfew means there have been no repeats of this tragic incident.

What you can see, however, is reef and lemon sharks riding the waves at the shoreline. They slither right up to the sand - it’s an incredible thing to witness.

Porto de Santo Antonio: dolphins galore

This beach gave way to the most incredible wildlife experience. Allow me to share the story - and if you have the time, definitely pay Porto a visit.

We booked an sunrise island snorkelling tour starting at Porto and trudged down to the shore for a 6am start. As we started to swim away from the beach, past clusters of green turtles and skittish lemon sharks, we realised our guide was nowhere to be seen. ⁣⁣

⁣“What’s that?” Jack asked, pointing at some intense splashes in the distance. ⁣I started to panic.

⁣Just as my fear reached fever pitch, we heard the unmistakable clicking and whistling of dolphins. ⁣Relief. ⁣⁣

⁣The sound intensified until the dive bombing pod (apparently it’s part of the mating ritual) was in and around us, swimming and playing by our feet.⁣⁣

⁣⁣It was the most unbelievable thing. We didn’t know how to react - do we swim beside them? Do we swim away? What is going on?⁣⁣

⁣⁣The guide suddenly reappeared, towing the forgotten member of the group, both totally out of breath and shouting in Portuguese. The message was clear: stay away! This is dangerous! ⁣⁣

⁣⁣And that was our encounter with the wild golfinhos of Noronha. Definitely look into similar snorkelling trips - but don’t try and get too close to these mating mammals. ⁣⁣

Atalaia: a microcosm of Noronha’s spectacular seas

If you’d rather not swim for long distances (our Porto-dolphin trip involved three hours of non-stop swimming) or being potentially in the same water as a tiger shark, Atalaia is incredible. It’s a closely monitored, ticketed and popular thing to do on the island and it’s recommended you book it at ICMBio as soon as you land.

It’s a huge natural rockpool and occasionally it fills with turtles or sharks. The day we visited, it was full of sensational tropical fish and nudibranchs. Amazing, definitely, but nothing compared to our snorkelling tour where we saw such a huge variety of animals.

The water is rarely higher than waist level and you have to wear a lifejacket at all times, so it’s an especially great place for anyone who doesn’t feel comfortable in the open water. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever been in before and definitely worth the ICMBio queue.

Leao: for lemon shark spotting

When we were in Noronha, people weren’t able to swim at Leao beach due to strong currents. You could see the water’s pull from the shore, with clashing wave breaks out at sea creating the occasional thumping splash.

The beach is rugged and wild and we walked along it as part of the day-long Capim Acu trail. But the best part of Leao? Its resident sharks.

We watched a shiver of lemon sharks slink through churning water for their prey, working together to maximise their feast. A kind Brazilian man offered his polarised sunglasses around so we could see the scene clearly. Definitely buy/ borrow/ pack some of these - they were amazing.

Restaurants and food on the island

I’ll keep this brief: we ate a lot of cheese toasties in Fernando de Noronha. A lot. And when we weren’t gorging on bread, we were scoffing on pao de quejio - Brazilian cheese balls. These were available for breakfast everywhere we stayed and were absolutely divine. Like Pizza Express’ dough balls with a molten cheesy core.

As to be expected on almost any island, food is more expensive than the mainland. Meals out came at a serious premium - at least 1.5 times the cost of the price of dinner in Rio.

Something surprising about Noronha was that the best-rated restaurants were attached to super-swanky hotels. The best upscale hotel-restaurants we ate at were Pousada do Vale, where we had a chestnut and palm heart salad and steaks overlooking its tropical gardens. Or Pousada Colina, where we ate huge portions of beef stir fry overlooking Morro de Pico, the huge rock that catches Noronha’s incredible, fluorescent sunsets.

One of our favourite places for food was Bio Bistrot, which specialises in organic, fresh and mainly vegetarian dishes (although be prepared to wait a while for your food as it’s a two-woman operation). I loved its meat-free take on Bahian classic Moqueca stew. Jack was a huge fan of the homemade beetroot hummus and avocado toasts.

Our absolute top place for food on the island was Noronha All Natural for homemade burgers - especially the sizzling prawn burger. They had an excellent selection of local craft beers and cans of red wine. The fresh ginger, pineapple and coconut juice was spectacular.

Generally, we much preferred these smaller places to the manicured fine-dining. Not only were they significantly more budget-friendly, we felt like the food was better. Fresher, tastier, and (in the case of Noronha All Natural) could hold its own against some of London’s best burger joints.

Getting around: to buggy, or not to buggy?

Buggies cost around £50 a day and can be rented from various places around the island, so it depends on your budget. We didn’t get one and mainly walked from A to B (beware: it’s treacherously hilly) or pre-booked taxis.

I wish I’d known that nine times out of ten you can’t just hail one down. I thought we were being declined because I looked permanently dishevelled, salty and sandy. No… they’re just almost always on their way to a booking.

Best time to go

Year-round! We experienced thunder and rain, blisteringly hot skies and huge, plane-wobbling winds. All in five September days. Generally, the dry season is September to December and it tends to rain the most in springtime, but we were told that it’s enduringly popular whatever the month.

I hope this lengthy write-up helps. Fernando de Noronha exceeded my astronomically high expectations. But it is definitely not the most accessible place if you’re unable to speak Portugese - so I’d recommend learning some phrases.

And not just “muito lindo”, like us.