Need a Refresher?

[Zenagirl]

Do you think an AOW diver who has about 50 dives and hasn't been diving in 2 years should take a refresher, or would a "pool dive" with the buddy (AOW, 50 dives, 2 years out of the water) to practice skills be enough?

At what point/experience/training/time etc. do you think someone does or doesn't need a refresher?

[mitchy]

I would think a pool session getting the rust off would suffice.

[St.jimmy]

I'd say take the refresher, some things might have changed since your training (ie, ascent rates)

[KGNickl]

Take a refresher in a pool for a couple hours and you should be fine. Test your skills and make sure you gear is good.

[islandguy]

Take a refresher in the pool

[johnyringo]

The pool should do it. Yea, practice your drills and stuff, mask flood, reg. recovery, buddy breathing and etc.

[cummings66]

As long as you can do the skills in the water and are comfortable a pool session is good enough. If he's not comfortable or shows signs of not understanding things then a refresher would be in order.

AOW and 50 dives doesn't mean a lot because who knows what those dives were? Not much has changed in 2 years so he's not going to learn anything new, unless he just forgot it.

My vote is for the pool session.

[hoobascooba]

take the refresher... in the pool.

[SkuaSeptember]

A refresher in the pool or in "pool like conditions" would be time well spent.

For the second part of the question, its very much a sliding scale that depends first off on how good the divers skills were to originally! Some divers are so bad that no amount of time off will make them worse.
Many good and frequent divers will notice some slipping of their skills if they've been dry for as little as a month or two and will spend the first dive or portion of a dive fine tuning themselves. To an outside observer they might look fine, but someone who has really good skills knows whether they are really "in the zone" or not.
If the diver in your question was previously able to descend gracefully and become neutrally buoyant at any point during the decent, do a reg recovery and mask clear while holding position in the water column and then ascend in the same controlled manner, then they might only need some play time in the pool. If they weren't at this skill level before hand, they aren't going to get there without some guidance.
When in doubt, err on the side of caution. You only get to be wromg once.

[Zenagirl]

I left it general on purpose to see what other's thought, hoping for a lively discussion.

More specifically this diver has a history of uncontrolled ascents, has trouble holding a safety stop mid-water, and is a very nervous diver. The 50 dives were done over a 2 year period prior, some cold some warm water, and AOW was done immediately after OW certification. The diver hasn't done any additional training since AOW and was originally thinking of simply doing a 45 foot "shallow" "easy" dive (cold water in a dry suit!!), to "ease back into" diving. I at least was able to convince them to do a pool dive prior, which was put off due to finding a dead computer battery.