Operations along the California coast kept the tug busy until the beginning of October when she began an extended restricted availability at San Diego. The new year began with the ship still in port at San Diego. However, she embarked upon her first tow on 2 January 1976 and remained active – shuttling tows between various California ports for the first seven months of 1976. On 7 August, the ship left San Diego to join a Fijian minesweeper at Seattle, Wash., for the voyage to Fiji. The two ships got underway on 16 August and set a course for Pearl Harbor where they arrived on 24 August and remained a week for repairs to the minesweeper's communications equipment. En route to Suva, Fiji, "Abnaki" assisted a civilian auxiliary sailboat grounded on a reef at Palmyra Island and towed it to Christmas Island. "Abnaki" and the Fijian minesweeper arrived at Suva, Fiji, on 17 September. The American ship remained at Suva until the 21st when she got underway for Subic Bay. En route, she stopped at Kapingamarangi Atoll to drop off cargo for the natives and at West Fayu Island to investigate a suspected violation of territorial waters by a Japanese fishing trawler. She finally arrived in Subic Bay on 4 October.