After conducting shakedown training off Key West, Florida, "Adopt" proceeded to Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, for post-shakedown repairs and alterations and then began a series of minesweeping tests and exercises at Little Creek, Virginia, and Solomons Island, Maryland. These operations occupied her into early September 1943, when she departed for the United States West Coast. "Adopt" made a brief stop at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before transiting the Panama Canal and joining the United States Pacific Fleet. She reached San Diego, California, on 25 September 1943.