[Note 1] She departed Port Said on 17 December, the same day a peace conference was convened in London to settle differences between the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan League.

[2][3] After stops at Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Manila, Yokohama, and Honolulu, Unalga reported to the Commander, RCS Northern Division at Port Townsend, Washington on 22 March 1913, which in turn assigned her to the Bering Sea Patrol.

For the next three years Unalga rotated between assignments in Alaska and Port Townsend and added the duty of enforcing the Neutrality Act when World War I started in Europe on 1 August 1914.

[6] Patrol work during 1915 and 1916 consisted of summers in Alaskan waters with sealing treaty duties, law enforcement, search and rescue, medical assistance to fishermen and others, and the delivery of mail to remote camps.

Unalga's first winter patrol was begun 30 January during a squall with hurricane force winds that iced the cutter over and threaten to sink her with the additional weight.

After the starboard whaleboat was smashed by heavy seas and the radio masts snapped from the weight of ice, Captain Frederick Dodge made for the shelter of Yakutat Bay.

[Note 3] The cutter was listing starboard at twenty degrees and the crew had to clear ice from the decks and machinery with axes and steam hoses.

The crew of Unalga spent the next week repairing damage to the cutter while the surgeon treated the ills of inhabitants of Yakutat and gave the resident missionary a short course in medicine.

[2][10][11] Duties for Unalga did not change under Navy control initially and she left for her usual summer patrol work in Alaskan waters on 4 May.

At the end of the summer cruise, she was assigned submarine tender duties with the Twelfth Naval District and home-ported at San Pedro, California, arriving 17 October.

[2][3] On 6 May 1918 she left Seattle for her usual Alaska patrol work, but in late May the captain was notified by radio to report to Unalaska to assist with an influenza epidemic.

In mid-June Unalga steamed to Bristol Bay and up the Nushagak River to Dillingham, Alaska providing medical services to the ill and burial details for the dead.

[2][15] Unalga's schedule of summers in Alaska and winter assignments with the Northern Division continued unchanged after the Treasury Department resumed control of the Coast Guard.