OK, that pretty much sounds like what I've been doing. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

I attached a piece of strap on the far side with a long piece of polypropylene so that I could pull the cover across from outside the pool (especially when the water temp was only 50 degrees ) I made the mistake once of using the rope to unroll the cover and pulled the strap right out. Now I unroll the cover at the reel and use the rope to pull the cover across into place.

Thanks for the reply.

Peter