Captain Cisneros, even as "Coast Farmer" was readying to leave Brisbane on the same mission, took the ship south around Australia to Fremantle on the west coast for engine repairs, fuel and water before setting out for Batavia for instructions on the run to Corregidor. Science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, then Lieutenant in the US Navy, was disciplined for his role in routing the "Don Isidro" around the south of Australia, "three thousand miles out of her way". Arriving there on 9 February 1942 the entire plan was unraveling as Japanese forces take Tengah airfield and make an additional landing on the island of Singapore as well as begin movements toward Sumatra. Meeting U.S. Navy representatives 10 February, as the situation in Singapore worsens and Japanese are conquering Borneo and the Celebes, the plan is changed with "Don Isidro" joining a British escorted convoy later that day in passage through Sunda Strait to the Indian Ocean. There the ship would separate from the convoy on the 13th and attempt a run south of Java, through the Timor Sea then through the Torres Straits and finally through the Dampier Strait east of New Guinea for the run through the Bismarck Sea and Pacific to the Philippines.