If you have a garden hose handy, you can fill it with the hose. I have a rebuilt knee and hate getting down to work on things too.

Great idea, thanks!

I have an in floor cleaner so priming on jet doesn't work for me either (plus I opened to 58 degree water).

What did work was attaching the head to the hose, dropping the head in, and slowly push the rest of the hose straight down into the water until I just have enough hose left to get to the skimmer. The pump still has to pull a couple feet of air out of the hose, but i suspect that is true of the eyeball method as well.