diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
index f26599ac1..bef3be2d1 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -217,10 +217,9 @@ jobs:
       subset: non-docker
     secrets: inherit
 
-  # Docker subset; skipped when there's no node image (fork PRs lack the quay secrets).
+  # Docker subset; an empty node_image falls back to DEFAULT_NWAKU (fork PRs lack the quay secrets).
   send-api-e2e-docker-tests:
     needs: [build, build-docker-image]
-    if: ${{ needs.build-docker-image.outputs.image != '' }}
     uses: ./.github/workflows/e2e-api-tests.yml
     with:
       subset: docker
diff --git a/.github/workflows/e2e-api-tests.yml b/.github/workflows/e2e-api-tests.yml
index e1c882ce5..95464c749 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/e2e-api-tests.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/e2e-api-tests.yml
@@ -44,4 +44,6 @@ jobs:
 
       - name: Run API/e2e tests (${{ inputs.subset }} subset)
         working-directory: tests-e2e
-        run: pytest tests/wrappers_tests -m "${{ inputs.subset == 'docker' && 'docker_required' || 'not docker_required' }}" --reruns 2
+        run: |
+          echo "docker peer image: ${NODE_2:-public default (DEFAULT_NWAKU)}"
+          pytest tests/wrappers_tests -m "${{ inputs.subset == 'docker' && 'docker_required' || 'not docker_required' }}" --reruns 2
diff --git a/tests-e2e/src/env_vars.py b/tests-e2e/src/env_vars.py
index 32e96a7e1..6fe752a38 100644
--- a/tests-e2e/src/env_vars.py
+++ b/tests-e2e/src/env_vars.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ def get_env_var(var_name, default=None):
 
 
 # Configuration constants. Need to be upercase to appear in reports
-DEFAULT_NWAKU = "wakuorg/nwaku:latest"
+DEFAULT_NWAKU = "wakuorg/nwaku:v0.38.1"
 STRESS_ENABLED = False
 USE_WRAPPERS = True
 NODE_1 = get_env_var("NODE_1", DEFAULT_NWAKU)