According to Jeremy Quinn of Webster's Wind Bar Chicago in his blog...it only takes about 2 weeks for an oyster to begin to reflect the conditions of its new location, its specific meroir, making it one of the rarest living things to precisely convey a sense of place through the palate…

Not the spelling of the word meroir...see http://theoystersmyworld.com/2013/01/05/meroir-or-merroir-ostreophile-or-ostreaphile/ for a discussion.

In any event, after only a year my own oysters have not only established their distinctive Slacktide meroir but they have been sampled by several folks who have declared them excellent!

I had not visited the shelly fellows since last November.  I had reports that they had survived Sandy, and confirmed that visually in March.  In May I went out and consolidated the lots--the smaller ones from last year had been in a separate bag.  I found none dead.  They were heavy to lift to the pier so I merely rolled the basket in place to dislodge dirt and encourage the growth of rounded oysters rather than one big oyster rock (they tend to bind to one another).  Even that process resulted in lots of cuts--gloves would have been useful.  Then first photo shows the float in the water, the second two the oysters from the bag (last year's smallest) and the final shows the oysters roasted on the plate...