We went on after lunch of foccaccio and fresh tomatoes, passing the beautiful villages that give the area its name. This is Corniglia, which hangs in the hammock of its valley, but is apparently home to the best beaches on this bit of coast.
The passage between the end of the isthmus, at Portovénere and Isola Palmária opens up quite suddenly in the cliff wall. You can see the further gap between Palmária and Isla del Tino from miles away, so it's a surprise to find the shorter way. We motored through with least depth of 5.4m. Heikell says that he found least depth 2.4m in (we think) 2005, and we've seen another blog which records seeing 2.2m. We stayed on the more mainland side and had no problems at all.