The heavy cruiser soon shaped a course for the west coast. After a stop at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, she transited the Panama Canal on 7–8 April and then steamed north to San Diego, where she joined Cruiser Division 6 (CruDiv 6) in time to participate in Fleet Problem XVI staged in May in the northern Pacific off the coast of Alaska and in waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. This operation was divided into five distinct phases which might be aspects of some real naval campaign of the future in which the United States would take the strategic offensive.