On Saturday 5th February in London, the splendid Round Chapel in Hackney played host to The Adventurists Afternoon Tea with Hendrick's Gin & Sir Chay Blyth. 

Conference rooms and 'function venues' have all the character of a fart in a lift, so we scoured Blighty's capital to find a gem of a place to hold the first tea of 2011. All were impressed by the lofty ceiling and general grandeur of the place.

Over 300 people packed in and adventuresome folk spilled out into the gallery overlooking the auditorium. On stage left Hendrick's Gin's 'Kiosk of Curious Contraptions' drew many a longing gaze, and stage right Bristol Ethicurean were serving their tea, cakes and sandwiches.

A mounted moose with sunglasses on, a boar's head topped by a bowler hat, a bath tub sporting rose petals and a Hendrick's Gin bottle, barmen wearing pith helmets and a smattering of gramaphones set a most peculiar scene.

The legend of adventure is the centrepiece of the afternoon tea and Sir Chay Blyth is nothing short of an historic figure in ocean adventuring. His full title; Commander of the British Empire, holder of the British Empire Medal, was not awarded lightly. 

From the moment he was picked up by The Adventurists he was  in fine fettle. Before the talk had already begun he had issued a friendly yet stern bollocking to The Adventurists crew for the slightly choatic nature of preparations, and wound everyone up with a convincing cry of 'You lot are getting the bloody Z lecture!'. Rather too convincing at the time for some.

The Adventurists founder Tom Morgan took to the stage to explain his mission of adventuring mayhem and other insights such as the genius of the Mototaxi sofa-bike. Then Lamorna from Frank Water, the official charity of the Rickshaw Run, answered questions about how the money raised by Adventurists teams makes a massive difference via their clean water projects in India. Roughly 200,000 people now have access to clean water because of projects funded by Rickshaw Run teams... 

Sir Chay received the loudest welcome to the stage ever heard at an afternoon tea and launched straight into his experiences setting out to row across the Atlantic in 1966 with absolutely no experience of being at sea, let alone rowing.

He took part in the first ever round the world yacht race, the Sunday Times Golden Globe, again setting out with absolutely no prior experience. He explained that 'with the whole world to sail around there was plenty of time to learn so I took some books with me and picked it up as I went along'. 

His delivery almost had people nodding in agreement that it was a perfectly sensible thing to do before he put the route map up on the screen and prompted a massive laugh by saying that while the route was very simple, he also had no idea how to navigate.

In 1970 became the first person to sail around the world against the prevailing winds and currents solo and non-stop. Before every adventure he has taken on, sensible people told him it was impossible, or that he was definitely going to die but that only ever made him believe more strongly that he was on the right track.  After 292 days at sea he made actual history and had probably learned to sail a bit by then too.

His tales had people snorting tea out of their noses from laughing too hard and too fast at his shockingly outrageous exploits, right through to moments of total sombre silence when he told the audience about the tragedy of losing crew mates at sea.

The list of outlandishly enormous adventures that Sir Chay Blyth has under his belt is far too long to list here, but if anyone who wasn't at the tea has a chance to see him talk, you will agree that he is a proper legend of adventure.

If the roof of the Round Chapel wasn't so high, the appreciative rowdy cheers and applause at the end of his talk would have raised it. Instead Hendrick's Gin had arranged to strap some circus performers to it for an impressive display of aerial antics while everyone enthusiastically enjoyed the Kiosk of Curious Concoctions and their splendid drinks. 

While quaffing Hendrick's Gin and taking in the sight of a chap dangling from the roof in positions that would make any normal man do a little cry, adventurists spanning several generations discussed past, present and future plans, clearly emboldened by Sir Chay's frankly hilarious talk.