After some searching it doesn't look like this has been conclusively discussed, so here goes.
The PCs search the ocean for a ship. They find the ship eventually, but it's deserted. Could the party ranger, with water as his favored terrain, use Tracking to find the missing crew?
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Depends on where the crew went. If something dragged them down to Davy Jones Locker, the best he'll probably be able to do is discover what sort of thing dragged them overboard. Tracking through the sea itself is likely impossible due to terrain modifiers (and then there's the temporal modifiers, if terrain didn't already make the task impossible..). Not unless the ranger has some magic or shark-like sense of smell to make possi le what is impossible for a regular (meta)human, no matter how skilled.
Having the Scent ability may allow tracking. Fortunately, the party has a ranger.
Without that it is going to be very difficult.
This is yet another instance where realism hampers non-casters. So it depends on whether or not you want to be fair to your players, or run a realistic universe.
Realistically, in the open ocean, there's no practical way to track something. On the other hand, Prince Humperdinck (in The Princess Bride) is supposed to be able to "track a falcon on a cloudy day," which is also impossible in our world.... but so is bringing someone "mostly dead" back to life.
I'd run it by RAW in this case; sure, you can, if you can make the unbelievably high Survival check, because if you can make a roll that high, it means that you really are That Guy (or That Girl) who can do awesome things that everyone else thinks are impossible.
And because otherwise the cleric will simply cast locate object and find the damn crew anyway, so what's the point of rubbing the ranger's nose in the fact that clerics rule and rangers drool?
People do actually track things on the open ocean, they just don't do it the same way.
If they're still above water, you'd look for bird-sign to see if there's anything birds are interested in eating (dead floating sailors for example). Also things like a knowledge of the area probably helps (any survivors would have to go for the nearest island or be dead soon anyway).
With magic it's easier of course (and you're more likely to find them if they're below the waves).
I'm no expert (at all), but I'm sure there's somewhere you could look this kind of thing up. People have hunted whales almost to extinction, so there's definitely some way to find them.
People do actually track things on the open ocean, they just don't do it the same way.I think the question is whether that type of tracking would still be considered a Survival check. I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Yeah the only other thing I can think of would be Knowledge: Nature.
I'm pretty sure Survival would cover it better, although if your party is doesn't have someone with a good Survival skill you could always open it up to other possibilities (Give them a K:Nature check with a higher DC than the Survival check or something similar).