Ok - I'm all fixed up! Apparently, the air leak was caused by one of the screw caps to the pump basket. It was hand-tightened, but I used a screwdriver to really tighten it and that did the trick. It also fixed my foaming issue, so both problems solved.
Although one thing that I still don't understand is that when I attach a hose to the skimmer to vacuum, the guage drops by 3 and I get the swirling action again in the pump basket. As soon as I remove the hose, the guage and pump return to ""normal." It doesn't appear to affect vacuuming nor is the pool foaming when vacuuming, so I guess it's okay. I used 2 different hoses with the same problem, so I don't think it's the hoses. Guess I won't worry about it.
Thanks for the replies!
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