To date, we had finally gotten the pool to a true blue color, but until Day Six, we were unable to see the bottom. This was a critically important step as it would allow us to evaluate the liner and assess the remaining debris. We arrived in the morning and COULD FINALLY see the bottom. There was a sludge at the bottom of the pool that we were expecting, which meant the chemicals had done their job, conglomerating the material into a state that could be vacuumed up.
Our pool lady had advised us that the next step was to plug the hose into the hole where the basket was directly next to the pool, turn the dial on the pump to 1 (or maybe 2, I can't remember lol), and this would allow the water to bypass the filter and just dump out. It was important to have a hose for fresh water running into the pool while doing this. We followed her instructions, and it worked—but not really.
Rookie mistake: there are two holes in that square filter thing next to the pool. One is a dummy hole, and the other is the actual suction line. Instead of just sucking up the sludge, we moved it all around, disturbing it and erasing some of our progress. This also caused the line to clog up somewhere. We were able to fix it, but Brian feared the worst—that pine needles had gotten into the main filter. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. While we erased a lot of the progress we made, we did learn how to use the hose attachment and the filter, so all was not lost.
Stay tuned for more updates!
PS- from what we could see, the liner looked like it was in good shape!