A picture would help... If however you have rain water getting into the wood, that is not a good thing as it will eventually cause the wood to dry rot and fail..
Wood is used as a coring in boats, sandwiched in between fiberglass to give it more strength.
Check out this article I found and how to repair dry rot.
https://www.jamestowndistributors.co...ID#/perpage:16
In your case all you might need to do it take the cleat off and re seat it and the screws in a bed of chalk or Butyl Tape.
What you need to do before you re chalk is make sure and get all the moisture out... You can use a hair dryer or heat gun for this.
Here is a quick article on how to re seat cleats
https://captnmike.com/2012/05/24/re-...deck-hardware/
