Tough stage. The main issue was the stage looping endlessly and becoming unbeatable. I thought it was an issue with the emulator but turns out you need to find a map hidden in one of the holes in the stage to end the stage. I started over and got back to this stage 2 more times in the process. Trying a different emulator and trying to restore my save to how it was (accidentally overwrote it). There are warps that should get me to the final stage from this point on, but I dont know yet if I will be able to get the final map to complete the game.
It also helps to not run at full speed through the entire level, as I was doing. Setting the penguin to speed 4 makes it much more managable.
This is from the Konami Antiques # 3 compilation and offers unlimited continues. The original MSX version has no continues , so is much harder.