I mobilized excavators yesterday and loaded dunnage and plywood and picked up the hammer today. I spent half a day getting into place, working by myself. It would have been handy to have someone setting straps and chains, and helping with the plywood and dunnage.
I backfilled the wall, pulled a fence panel, set the steel plate with the big machine and set some working dunnage out ahead of me to step down with. It is an 18" high wall.
I spun 90 on the steel plate and then set plywood and headed off across the lawn. here I have set the hammer in behind me and I'm grabbing the steel sheet off the lawn before it does any harm.
I picked the hammer around ahead of me then set it down and bucketed my way up on that curb on the left and a 4x8 on shipping blankets on the pool edge. That curb has a 1/2" colorized gunite skin coat that is fragmenting off, so I don't have to protect it. The hot tub is across the end of the pool there and I have to demo my way into it to make the corner.
here is the other access to that end of the pool. NOPE!
I think I found the leak!