SoCal beach diving means you are entering the water off of both sand and rocks, and any combination thereof. I've recently had my most difficult exit ever at Malaga cove, where the rocks are bowling ball size or slightly larger, covered in slick alge. I started hitting the rocks in about 4 feet of water, and ended up crawling out onto the rocky beach after about 10-12 minutes of hard work. It was not fun, and certainly made the marginal vis dive that proceeded it 'not worth it'. Other than the exit it would have been an ok dive, but that exit was rough!
Once the rocks start to get larger you can do some rock climbing to get out (like Casino Point if you avoid the stairs - I did that with doubles about 8 months ago). Sand can be difficult also, especially in the winter when the bottom is not smooth at all, but full of gullies and ripples so you are alternating between ankle-depth and neck-depth on your way in.
By the way, I took LA County ADP in 2005 (right after completing DIR Fundies), and went through the instructor program (UICC) in early 2006. I've helped out in one ADP and one UICC since then. I would be helping this year except work has me working far too long on too many days, so I haven't made it out to ADP yet this year. I am on the hook to teach the dive physics portion of the course whenever I find out when they've scheduled it.
There is one individual instructor who told me on my first day of ADP as a student "If I had my way that long hose wouldn't be allowed in this course." He was the only one with a problem, though, but he could not explain it beyond a flat-out rejection. Every 'reason' he gave was flat out false and in the end it seemed to me he hadn't thought really through the details and was just reciting objections he's heard. Anyway, nobody else said anything about my DIR set-up.
They do require snorkels for beach entries, so I got a fold-up one for the entries and immediately took it off so as to not interfere with long hose deployment while diving.
The way I've broken the classes down for people is that I thought DIR-F was the best at teaching the diver about himself in the water (trim, kicks, etc...) while I thought LA County ADP did a great job with teaching the diver about his environment here as SoCal divers (sandy beaches, rocky beaches, currents, tides, rips, freshwater lakes, altitude diving, bad vis, search & recovery, lift bag operations, etc.). Not a perfect breakdown, but gets to the heart of the matter.
Since LA County has the long history, and connections with county government as well as local cities, we get access that other programs don't get. We've had the Long Beach S&R divers run us through some search and recovery techniques, with a simulated in-water aircraft accident. We've had lectures by the Scripp's Institute Antarctica Diving Safety Officer. The College of Oceaneering has set us up with hard-hats in their training tank and run us through their hyperbaric chambers to a 165 foot dive. (Yours truly passed on that one, those small chambers are small! I'd rather wait for the larger Catalina Chamber, thank you.)
Ray
Not edited - rewritten. (several times - a writers prerogative).
