Charlie,

Last year I bought 4 8x2 air pillows, tied them up end to end and also tied them to posts in the ground. Within one week one pillow went completely flat, over the course of the winter one of my ties broke forcing the pillows off the the side of the pool. After all that effort, I still had a huge amount of water to pump off the tarp. I've also considered getting 1/2 hemp rope from work and zig zagging it over the pool tied down with stakes....... havent tried that yet. The one thing that has come in handy with the tarp is the leaf net as I have a alot of trees near the pool. These trees is the main reason I wont open the pool until second week of may and I close it by the end of sept.