I'm cleaning this pool for the first time and I'm not having an easy time w/the equipment. My last pool's skimmer was designed differently.
When I fill the hose and plunge the... thing that you plunge into the skimmer, into the skimmer, there's no suction, which is not terribly surprising, because there's no seal made.
Now here are a couple of the shots of the basket from the skimmer:
* https://photos.app.goo.gl/iCupecTU3mHYkDGD8
* https://photos.app.goo.gl/Yfatfp1kohgHCbuw7
And as you can see, there's not much there for the... thing that you plunge into the skimmer to mate w/. However, if you look into the empty skimmer you can see that it looks like the... thing you plunge into the skimmer has something to mate w/but the basket gets in the way. My understanding of pool cleaning is that you don't remove the basket when doing it--it catches a multitude of sins.

Please let me know if they above links don't work. Google Photos sez that anyone w/the URL should be able to see the pics, but I don't believe everything I read.