Day two and three, I added two more 16' beams across the pool, and then tied them all together so the whole structure wouldn't lean over towards the shallow end and fall down. In the photos below, I just chucked some joists onto the top of the three beams just to show my wife and my Dad (who have both been tracking my progress) some semblence of progress towards a "deck". I quickly realized that the top surface of the deck wasn't really level from side to side, and quickly came up with a plan to build the deck in a few sections, each one supported only by four beams (to start). Then I would apply the top deck material (I chose redwood in this case - more on this later), and then I will shim or cut each of the posts around the deck to align the top surface with the edge surface of the pool. The goal is to make them the same exact level so that tricycles can be ridden seamlessly across it without any problems. It also helps to reduce the trip hazard.
Well, by the end of day four (forgot to take photos on day 3), the structure had the three beams and the joists simply laid on top for effect. The underlying structure is weak - the goal is to shim the entire deck to the proper height, and then re-inforce the heck out of it once it's final height is determined. It's strong enough to support my weight, but not strong enough to support much of anything else. When done, I will make sure you can drive a truck on it, but before the shimming, it doesn't make any sense to reinforce, as I will just have more things to adjust later on.
Photos:
